{"id":13077,"date":"2024-03-13T12:36:57","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T12:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=13077"},"modified":"2024-03-13T12:36:57","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T12:36:57","slug":"reading-the-end-finishing-shelbys-whopper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=13077","title":{"rendered":"READiNG: The End\u2026 Finishing Shelby\u2019s Whopper!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Some time, (I think?) after midnight, last night, I finally finished volume three of Shelby Foote\u2019s whopping great three volume The Civil War.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow! What an epic read. But, as he says at the end. All things must and indeed do pass. Rather like reading Delderfield, I feel almost obliged to note that Foote is – or was, before this twenty year work – primarily an author of fiction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He\u2019s also been criticised for romanticising the South. Personally I don\u2019t have a beef with him on that. He is, after all, a Southerner himself. Considering that is so, he\u2019s remarkably balanced about things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it does mean you have to bear that in mind a bit. In terms of a bias, or a tendency to romanticise things – he has a definite thing for the \u2018ghostly halloo\u2019 of the legendary \u2018Rebel Yell\u2019 – you can definitely feel it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, he ends the book with what amounts to – or can easily be construed as – a slightly hagiographic defence of Jeff Davis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t mind that. History will always have multitudes of voices, saying slightly (sometimes wildly) differing things. I\u2019m not a big fan of Napoleon\u2019s alleged remark that history is merely lies agreed upon. One hopes there are truths of sorts that can and should be \u2018dug up\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the main thing is, this is dramatic, exciting and compelling. The kind of history that might inspire a lifetime\u2019s dedication to the subject. And as long as one has the critical faculties to detect and discern bias, and treat it appropriately, then in itself it\u2019s not a deal-breaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have really enjoyed reading this monumental work. And I\u2019m almost sad it\u2019s finally ended. It\u2019s like travelling to another time and place. A holiday for the mind\/soul. Beneficial even to the body: reading this has been both calming, generally, and has helped me sleep without the chemical crutch of zopiclone.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019m also happy. I\u2019ve travelled far and wide, from knee deeps muds, sloggng along \u2018bottomless\u2019 rain-drenched roses, across rivers with magical American names – from the Appomattox to the Yazoo – with shot and shell whistling around my ears. From the reduction to rubble of Fort Sumter, and elsewhere, to re transutions into defensive trench warfare on land, and the birth of the ironclads on river and at sea, it\u2019s been truly epochal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utterly absorbing. I honestly can\u2019t recommend this enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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* And not by boring me to sleep. Far from it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some time, (I think?) after midnight, last night, I finally finished volume three of Shelby Foote\u2019s whopping great three volume The Civil War. Wow! What an epic read. But, as he says at the end. All things must and indeed do pass. Rather like reading Delderfield, I feel almost obliged to note that Foote is … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “READiNG: The End\u2026 Finishing Shelby\u2019s Whopper!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-3oV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13077"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}