When the blurbs are flying and the marketers are overwhelmed with work, nuance is lost and comedy appears in the juxtapositions.

Read this Herman Hattaway endorsement closely:

"Weigley's A Great Civil War is the finest, most complete and insightful, and historiographically up-to-date, large-scale one volume military and political history of the U.S. 'war for the Union' now in print..."

It's hard, really hard, to miss the slight against James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Nevertheless the Indiana University Press issued a release with Hattaway's quote immediately above this one:

"The scale and sophistication of A Great Civil War put(s) it on a level with James McPherson's epic Battle Cry of Freedom."

Dissonant, eh? And I like the fact that the fellow polishing McPherson's halo can't make his verbs and nouns agree. (A mere coincidence? Or are McPherson's picture books dumbing down his next generation of fans...)