Review: Davis, ed., Touched by Fire

[truepenny]

Touched by Fire: A National Historical Society Photographic Portrait of the Civil War by William C. Davis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This calls itself a "photographic portrait" of the Civil War. Acres of photographs, arranged thematically, and terrible, terrible captions. The captions declare the Civil War to have been glorious, praise the heroes on both sides, wax sentimental about the soldier's life, and barely mention slavery at all. It's like the Civil War is a thing that doesn't need its origins talked about and that we can all celebrate unproblematically. (My feeling is that the Civil War is a monstrous thing, as all wars are monstrous, and we need to talk about its origins a lot.) The photographs, on the other hand, are stark rather than sentimental, and tell a rather different story than the captions.

Five stars for the photographs, two for the captions. Three and a half stars, round up to four.



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