3/07/2008

We do love our lists

Hat tip to Brett Schulte for pointing me toward CWi's newly compiled top 50 Civil War book list.

I find the result idiosyncratic, which may reflect the peculiarity of ACW readers or the scale of the sample, or both. Nevertheless it gives me a chance to tip my hat to Russell Bonds for making a big impression with Stealing the General and to Joe Harsh for debuting in the middle of the list.

Eric Wittenberg and J.D. Petruzzi are on the roster as well for a very interesting piece of revisionism and my best to them. The list puts Eric in an odd position which he is handling with grace: as co-author he appears farther down than one of his own authors (Eric is a publisher too) - James Morgan and A Little Short of Boats. On the other hand, Boats is the one book Morgan was meant to write, while Eric will write many more.

As a feel-good exercise, can we then say "mission accomplished"?