Even the reviewers are noticing

A conventional ACW pop history retelling comes forth (Grant and Sherman, the Friendship that Won the Civil War) and even the book reviewer feels obliged to warn his readers, "the details of the famous relationship are familiar to event the most casual of buffs, and building his whole project on this framework sometimes feels slightly strained."

Why slightly strained?

At least this hackwork is being molested at the lowest-common-denominator of reviewing, the newspaper. I'll take that as an omen for 2006.