SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION is the largest museum complex in the world. Smithsonian Civil War features objects from 12 Smithsonian museums and research centers and text by 49 curators with expertise in a variety of fields. NEIL KAGAN specializes in producing innovative illustrated books. As the former publisher for Time-Life Books, he created numerous book series, including Voices of the Civil War, Our American Century, and What Life Was Like. He has edited Great Battles of the Civil War, Great Photographs of the Civil War, Concise History of the World, Eyewitness to the Civil War, Atlas of the Civil War, and The Untold Civil War.
KIRKUS REVIEWS, Starred Review
For the 150th anniversary of the war, 150 lushly illustrated
thematic essays about both the objects the various Smithsonian
sites hold and the people associated with them.With the help of a
cast of thousands, including Hyslop (Contest for California: From
Spanish Colonization to the American Conquest, 2012, etc.),
Kagan—former publisher of Time-Life Books and editor of other Civil
War titles (Great Battles of the Civil War, 2002, etc.)—has
assembled a striking collection of images with some equally clear
words to accompany them. The selections range from the expected to
the surprising. Among the former are entries on Ulysses S. Grant,
Robert E. Lee, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Clara Barton, George
B. McClellan, J.E.B. Stuart and William T. Sherman—and, of course,
Abraham and Mary Lincoln. But surprises appear almost everywhere.
The pottery of slave David Drake, plaster casts of Lincoln’s hands
and face (from 1860), messages scratched inside Lincoln’s watch,
the various uniforms worn throughout the conflict, various surgical
devices, a recipe (sort of) for hardtack, musical instruments, a
lithograph of prisoners playing baseball, a violin carried by a
soldier, images of early plans for winged aircraft, the chairs and
tables used at Appomattox, the coffee cup Lincoln drank from the
night of his assassination, the hoods worn by those convicted of
and hanged for Lincoln’s murder, stunning photos of Sojourner Truth
and Harriet Tubman—these are among the many delights that await
readers. Most grim are the devices and inventions whose functions
were to maim and kill: firearms, mortars, the Bowie knife, the
accouterments of slavery. There are also plenty of images of the
wounded, the dying and the dead. With each turn of the page, there
are countless grisly reminders of the things human beings are
capable of doing to one another: enslavement, murder, riot, combat,
bombing, and on and on.Beauty dances with horror on virtually every
page.
BOOKLIST, Starred Review
This large-format book commemorates the 150th anniversary of the
Civil War; the premise behind its publication is that “never before
have Civil War treasures from throughout the Smithsonian been
assembled and interpreted in one place as they are here.” The
Smithsonian Institution, founded in 1846, currently comprises 19
museums and nine research centers, and from their vast collections
have been photographed—in exquisite clarity—the “most valuable,
significant, and interesting” Civil War–related items, ranging from
valuable documents to battle flags, surgical instruments used in
the field, uniforms and weapons, and an abundance of photographs,
some iconic, others rarely seen. The items are arranged into
groupings by specific topic, each of these groupings introduced by
context-setting brief essays written by 49 contributing
specialists. These chapter-topics include “Prewar Portraits” (of
famous people before the war); “Sold Down the River” (internal
slave trafficking); “Civil War Headgear”; “Letters Home”; “The
Wartime Patent Office” (the building housing it served as a
barracks and, later, as a hospital during the war); and “The Fate
of Mary Lincoln.” The very reasonable price for this gorgeous
storehouse of information allows its purchase for all active
American history collections. — Brad HooperPUBLISHERS WEEKLY
History is sometimes best told through the artifacts it leaves
behind. As for the Civil War, the Smithsonian Institution’s
artifacts can communicate more than any textbook ever could, from a
violin carried by a Union soldier to the canvas hoods forced on
Lincoln’s assassination conspirators. These and other haunted
relics from the antebellum period through Reconstruction are found
in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection
(Smithsonian, $40). Museum curators each selected and wrote about a
specific object from the collections, generating a total of 150
entries. You might call a number of these objects works of art,
particularly the pottery of David Drake, the Edgefield, S.C., slave
who inscribed witty couplets and short poems onto his vessels, such
as “Another trick is worst than this/Dearest Miss, spare me a
kiss.”
CHOICE
This outstanding hardback pictorial history opens the Civil War
collections of the Smithsonian and presents them in a remarkably
accessible, artistic, and informative fashion. The
exceptional strength of this work is anchored on the astonishing
Civil War collection of artifacts that the Smithsonian has within
its vaults and on display, and subsequently reproduced in this
volume. Though the emphasis is on the visual experience, the
narrative overviews and item descriptions provide exceptional
background and historical context for each chapter and component on
display. While the book can be viewed as either a reference
volume or a coffee-table pictorial history, anyone with an interest
in the Civil War, from university professor to elementary school
student, will be drawn in and able to utilize this unique
masterpiece for projects ranging from a school report to assembling
a manuscript for publication; all objects and images contain their
respective Smithsonian catalog identification. Quite frankly, every
home and every library in the US should own a copy of this timeless
masterpiece. Most highly recommended. Summing Up:
Essential. All levels/libraries of all types. -- T.
Maxwell-Long, California State University, San Bernardino
Featured in the 2013 holiday gift book lists of USA Today,
Associated Press, Seattle Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Los
Angeles Times, and Newsday.
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