Weirding the War: Stories from the Civil War's Ragged Edges

UnCivil Wars

by Stephen Berry (Contributor)

“It is well that war is so terrible,” Robert E. Lee reportedly said, “or we would grow too fond of it.” The essays collected here make the case that we have grown too fond of it, and therefore we must make the war ter­rible again. Taking a “freakonomics” approach to Civil War studies, each contributor uses a seemingly unusual story, incident, or phenomenon to cast new light on the nature of the war itself. Collectively the essays remind us that war is always about damage , even at its most heroic and even when certain people and things deserve to be damaged.

Here then is not only the grandness of the Civil War but its more than occasional littleness. Here are those who profited by the war and those who lost by it―and not just those who lost all save their honor, but those who lost their honor too. Here are the cowards, the coxcombs, the belles, the deserters, and the scavengers who hung back and so survived, even thrived. Here are dark topics like torture, hunger, and amputation. Here, in short, is war.

Genres: History, Civil War, War

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

Some of his books have been published as Stephen W. Berry II


Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays collected in "Weirding the War" cover topics on the margins of Civil War, especially Confederate, history: torture, PTSD, death, and looting. Each brief essay is based on a conference presentation. As a result, the essays are not as in-depth as I would have liked. They offer an excellent, thought-provoking introduction to a topic but rarely get into detail about the implications for history and/or Civil War scholarship. The bibliographies and endnotes are extremely helpful, however.

I suggest this book as a good starting place for someone interested in the Confederacy, Civil War, or social history.