Shelby Foote

2,261 Views | 17 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by BQ78
Mort Rainey
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Has anyone here read Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy? I know he became super famous from the Ken Burns doc, but I wondered if it was worth diving into those books.
BQ78
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AG
Yes, not as intimidating as they look.
VanZandt92
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I'm no Civil War buff, but wasn't Foote pretty well known before that?
TJJackson
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I have the set, but haven't gotten very far into it. It does seem intimidating. I will probably make it a priority to read them in the new year.
VanZandt92
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I'm more into first hand experiences of soldiers and all kinds of civilians.
Liquid Wrench
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VanZandt92 said:

I'm no Civil War buff, but wasn't Foote pretty well known before that?
He was respected by other writers (and was childhood friends with Walker Percy), but not so well known. He was sort of getting by as a fiction writer before negotiating the commission for what became his trilogy.

If you mean before the Burns documentary, the documentary definitely did a lot for his reputation. I'm not old enough to say for sure, but I doubt he had the recognition of other popular historians like Bruce Catton.
VanZandt92
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ChiliBeans said:

VanZandt92 said:

I'm no Civil War buff, but wasn't Foote pretty well known before that?
He was respected by other writers (and was childhood friends with Walker Percy), but not so well known. He was sort of getting by as a fiction writer before negotiating the commission for what became his trilogy.

If you mean before the Burns documentary, the documentary definitely did a lot for his reputation. I'm not old enough to say for sure, but I doubt he had the recognition of other popular historians like Bruce Catton.


Here's to the most over studied conflict ever.
74OA
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AG
VanZandt92 said:

ChiliBeans said:

VanZandt92 said:

I'm no Civil War buff, but wasn't Foote pretty well known before that?
He was respected by other writers (and was childhood friends with Walker Percy), but not so well known. He was sort of getting by as a fiction writer before negotiating the commission for what became his trilogy.

If you mean before the Burns documentary, the documentary definitely did a lot for his reputation. I'm not old enough to say for sure, but I doubt he had the recognition of other popular historians like Bruce Catton.


Here's to the most over studied conflict ever.
Well, when 100% of the casualties are American and it sets the groundwork for the national direction for the next century or so, it does tend to draw considerable attention.........
wesag
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AG
Write a Civil War book. Plenty of ground to break.
Change Detection
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AG
I saw an interview with SF and he wrote all 3 books with a dip pen. The books are huge and he hand wrote each with a dip pen.

The Civil War is not over studied, more truths come out as things are re-evaluated. For instance, the death toll is being recalculated to 800K or more, up from 650K.

Weird thing is that kids know very little about the Civil War. They all think that our country is the most polarized it has ever been. BS! Study some civil war history.
aalan94
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AG
I would say the most over-studied conflict ever relative to its historical role would be the Texas Revolution. Not to say I don't love reading about it, but I doubt there is 1 book on the John C. Freemont/California "Revolution" for ever 20 books on the Texas Revolution. What's less important is how much or less it's studied, but are the books on the topic just a complete rehash of everything that's been written before or do we learn something new?
aalan94
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AG
Quote:

Weird thing is that kids know very little about the Civil War. They all think that our country is the most polarized it has ever been. BS! Study some civil war history.

Just read something today I never knew. (I have read 20-30 history books a year for the past 25 years and I'm still learning new stuff, so I am really skeptical about people making big pronouncements about history when they've just taken the minimum classes).

Anyway, the thing I learned in a book today was that in 1935, there was a one-hour boycott of colleges all across America demanding, among other things, the elimination of ROTC in school. This sounds like a 60s hippie thing, but there it was in 1935. And of course, 80 percent of those who did the boycott (almost all male) ended up serving in WWII probably, and by then probably thought the boycott was stupid, if they thought about it at all.
OldArmy71
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AG
Interesting, aalan. As you know, there was a strong isolationist sentiment in the US and especially in England, which had lost so many in WWI. You will recall the famous Oxford Pledge, adopted after a debate in 1933, in which the students voted "this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country."

I found a google excerpt from the book When the Old Left Was Young that covers the Pledge and then the 1934 student strike in the US and the much more successful 1935 strike that you are referencing (see pp. 91-94).
Liquid Wrench
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Quote:

Weird thing is that kids know very little about the Civil War.
It was emphasized when I was in middle school. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the generational change of teachers and their interests. I also had parents who were interested in visiting battlefields on family trips, so I was lucky to have parents who wanted to see the things I wanted to see, including statues of ancestors.

Studying the Civil War really does put conflict in context. When friends who are casual observers of politics ask me what I think about the Trump/Hillary drama, I kinda shrug it off. We've been through worse.
P.H. Dexippus
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AG
Back to the OP...I own the trilogy in hardback. It's a great read, and has lead me to undertake several battle field visits. Unfortunately, it takes forever for me to get through a book of any length because I never seem to find the time required. But I am hooked on audio books played through my iPhone (I use Audible). That way I can listen while commuting or traveling for business, doing tasks around the house, getting ready for work in the morning, etc. I can also play the audio back faster than I could otherwise read and comprehend. I have the first 2 volumes on Audible as narrated by Grover Gardner. For some reason I have been unable to determine, the 3rd volume appears to have been withdrawn from sale...I've got to track that down.
Mort Rainey
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Mr. AGSPRT04 said:

Back to the OP...I own the trilogy in hardback. It's a great read, and has lead me to undertake several battle field visits. Unfortunately, it takes forever for me to get through a book of any length because I never seem to find the time required. But I am hooked on audio books played through my iPhone (I use Audible). That way I can listen while commuting or traveling for business, doing tasks around the house, getting ready for work in the morning, etc. I can also play the audio back faster than I could otherwise read and comprehend. I have the first 2 volumes on Audible as narrated by Grover Gardner. For some reason I have been unable to determine, the 3rd volume appears to have been withdrawn from sale...I've got to track that down.
The real shame of course is that the books aren't narrated by Shelby himself
P.H. Dexippus
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AG
True. It would be 10x as interesting a listen. Other than Burn's documentary, any idea if Foote ever recorded a narration of his own work?
VanZandt92
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Change Detection said:

I saw an interview with SF and he wrote all 3 books with a dip pen. The books are huge and he hand wrote each with a dip pen.

The Civil War is not over studied, more truths come out as things are re-evaluated. For instance, the death toll is being recalculated to 800K or more, up from 650K.

Weird thing is that kids know very little about the Civil War. They all think that our country is the most polarized it has ever been. BS! Study some civil war history.


I work at Wake Forest. There are rows upon rows of Civil War books.
BQ78
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AG
Foote did narrate the Gettysburg part of his book in a tape set called "Stars in their Courses" (the Gettysburg chapter of the book) and the Vicksburg parts called "The Beleaguered City" (culled from several chapters that discuss the Vicksburg campaign).
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