Seen in the papers (cont.)

Early last year, the University of Illinois Press issued David Work's Lincoln's Political Generals. Work sees his book as a corrective to Thomas Goss's The War Within the Union High Command (see this blog, 5/07/2004). Work sees Goss as missing the larger picture of Lincoln's policy by focusing on a small set of "political generals." He also notes that Goss's focus on issues surrounding West Point professionalism make this earlier work something other than a study of Lincoln's appointment policy. In his introduction, Work singles out Brooks Simpson's views on political generals in a way that merits further comment here, in some future post.

And speaking of Brooks Simpson, he was part of a very odd project launched by the Library of America in 2011(The First Year, The Second Year, The Third Year). Simpson and Stephen Sears divided up the compilation work to produce some big books. Given the flood of regimental histories and diaries since the 1990s, it makes sense to collect from these the most interesting bits. My fear is (without having seen these works) that the editors might have been tempted to dip into their existing stock of material, previously used to write books decades ago. My additional fear is that Sears, a very active polemicist, would not miss this opportunity to advance his unbalanced views of the first two years of the war. I don't associate LOA with textbooks: this appears to be a project aimed at the leisure reader.

Since part 1 of this topic was published a new Claremont Review arrived with the Simpson/Sears series advertised again. Good for LOA. This issue also advertised:

Claiming Lincoln: Progressivism, Equality, and the Battle for Lincoln's Legacy in Presidential Rhetoric by Jason Jividen
There seems little to add to such a descriptive title except that the point of the book seems to be about contextualizing what is often quoted out of context. From the blurbs, Jividen seems to split the difference between making AL a Straussian vs. a Lockean. If true, that won't fly here.

The Maltby Brothers Civil War by Norman Delaney
Three Texan brothers, one Unionist, two Confederates. You might bring your cliche radar for this tome from Texas A&M Press.

This post would have been longer if I read the Civil War Times, I suppose. Ads aside, we'll soon get to to writing about the backlog of good books published and received here.