The American Civil War (review)

BOOK REVIEWS273 the two accounts compensate for the limitations in the other. Taken together, Billington and Wise provide as valuable materials for understanding Turner as are likely to appear for a long, long time. Their contributions toward understanding both Turner and ourselves will be much greater if their readers view Turner, not as a fallen idol whose weaknesses we have now overcome, but as a historian whose weaknesses are analogous to our own—whether our own particular paradigm be "Progressive," "counter-Progressive," "New Left," "New, New Left," or even "Old Hat." Thomas J. Pressly University of Washington The American Civil War. By Peter J. Parish. (N.Y.: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1975. Pp. 750. $25.00 cloth; $12.50 paper.) It comes as something of a surprise to realize that only a few comprehensive one-volume accounts of the Civil War exist. In all the outpouring of books on the conflict by generations of historians, the single treatment has been conspicuous by its scarcity. In 1937 James G. Randall published his massive textbook on the Civil War and Reconstruction era, and in the same year Carl Russell Fish issued his shorter and somewhat uneven work on the war years. David Donald revised Randall's volume in 1961, but since that time only a small number of brief surveys have appeared. Historians of the war apparently have wanted to accent the particular while avoiding the general. These reflections are prompted by the appearance of a new comprehensive book on the war that takes also a quick look, one chapter, at Reconstruction. It is perhaps significant that this first attempt in many a year to survey the whole panorama of the war is made not by an American historian but by one from another country, Peter J. Parish of the University of Glasgow. Parish was drawn to studying the war fifteen years ago, has taught a course in it, and regarding it from the outside, has grasped not only its national but its world significance. Contemplating the vast literature of the war, he decided to put his knowledge together in an overview. "One justification for yet another book about the Civil War may be, paradoxically, that there are already so many," he writes. American readers will be struck by many qualities of the book. They will be impressed first by the shrewd insights and sparkling characterizations that abound throughout its pages. A few examples will illustrate Parish's ability to turn a phrase. On Lincoln's snatching of the Republican nomination from William H. Seward: "In 1860 Seward was a man with a past, and Lincoln was a man with a future." 274BOOK REVIEWS On Lincoln's skill as a politician: "Lincoln's inclination was to make small decisions which sometimes had large consequences, some good, some bad; others preferred grander gestures and bolder designs which sometimes ended in anti-climax." On George B. McClellan as a general: "He had most of the talents, except the ability to put them to the greatest use." And finally, on the faults of Jefferson Davis: "Whereas Lincoln, against all expectation, grew with the terrific responsibilities which he bore, Davis struggled to maintain his old, not inconsiderable, stature under even more crushing burdens. He was admirably stoical, but stoicism was not enough." But the book has more than mere style and grace. It possesses solid substance, great knowledge digested into manageable form. Parish considers every aspect of the war, from its causes to its consequences . In between he treats such topics as the rival governments, the contrasting societies of North and South, the raising of the armies, diplomacy, finance, and naval developments. He is to be commended particularly for giving proper space to the land campaigns . Conceding that he is not interested in details of tactics, he nevertheless rejects "that opposing school of thought which is prepared to discuss the history of a war without mentioning anything so unpleasant as the actual fighting." His accounts of the battles are well done and his judgments on the factors determining their outcome are generally balanced. A similar balance marks his treatment of other phases of the war. Some American specialists may object that he accepts too readily some of the...