It was 10 years ago next month when the hardback came out,
George B. McClellan & Civil War History. This month, the paperback edition has finally been released. From the preface:
The study of George B. McClellan that follows takes its form from my conviction that another standard biography or campaign study would serve no useful purpose. The literature is replete with such works. What was needed, in my opinion, was an analytical review of the literature itself. The format of this book, then, is many things but none of them exclusively. It contains biographical campaign narrative elements synthesized from the excellent studies already written. In undertaking a review of the existing literature it becomes a historiographic work, thus the obvious reliance on secondary source material. And it is revisionist to the extent that it both challenges well-established Civil War doctrine and suggests alternative mechanisms of reinterpretation.More precisely, I wanted here to examine the literature that emerged in the last half century, for it is here that the consensus opinion of McClellan has taken shape. And it is here that we find the evolution of McClellan as a seriously flawed general and individual. The writers of this period, whom I will refer to as Unionist historians, have thoroughly dominated the academic evaluation of McClellan's Civil War career and have directly influenced the popular perception in the process.
