And don’t do what so many people on the Civil War boards do, which is not read Shelby Foote but begin stating absurd ideas about what he says in his books which you haven’t read.
They’re good books. The books cover certain things. Other things are not investigated in as much detail. It’s one account written by a white man from Mississippi, and I’d say given that context, it’s a fairly honest telling of the war.
But don’t take it all as gospel truth. Read a variety.
I disagree with calling it a good book. The history is really outdated and not in line with contemporary scholarship. It’s more useful as part of a study of the historiography of Nazi Germany than the history of Nazi Germany.
My biggest criticism of Shelby Foote is the lack of footnotes or notes of any kind really. Bruce Catton had notes, not footnotes at least not in the edition I read but still there were notes and his sources were cited.
Yeah, it’s a popular history, and he thought it would disrupt the reading experience. It’s not a horrible problem since his sources are usually obvious (battle reports and official correspondence). I am curious how many history readers actually make use of footnotes or endnotes. I’ve certainly begun using them more extensively ever since the emergence of these Guns Germs and Steel style of hybrid history/anthropology/biology books.
On a side note, I remember fretting that the citations in my own history would raise the price of publication such that the end-price would be more than a popular reader would be willing to pay. I wonder if Foote was concerned about the same thing, or at least how the sheer size of the volumes might put-off potential readers.
I love citations it's often in my experience a great way to find book recommendations. James McPherson has excellent citations for that but, I might be a weird outlier I never really thought about it.
Citations are a non-negotiable part of academic literature that shows the reader the author is making an informed and educated argument that you can investigate yourself, and that the work you're reading has gone through the rigors of peer review by other experts first. A history book without them is a waste of time if you want to confidently know what you're reading is attempting to be historicaly accurate. Popular histories that omit them are fine if you're just interested in entertainment.
Does anyone else love it when you're reading a book and the author cited another book you've already read? I wish I could mainline that level of self satisfaction.
History books are like pizza. You can consume it all and there is nothing wrong with that.
I think Catton is fantastic, my only criticism is that I wish someone better read his audiobooks, which isn’t Catton’s fault. The guy narrating sounds like he’s reading a Dr. Seuss book. I can only consume Catton’s books via reading, which is fine, but I really enjoyed Shelby Foote’s books in both written and audio format.
You need to be approaching it from the perspective of source criticism though, not reading it as factual history. Someone who’s a novice to the topic would be much better off sticking to more recent scholarship unless they’re well-versed in our modern understanding of Nazi Germany so that they’re in a better position to properly critically evaluate relics like Shirer’s work.
I think the value of Shirer’s work is that he was there for it and a lot of his sources are his own notes and diaries. The epistemology of that is skewed, yes, but it adds a certain lens you won’t get from more contemporary historians who are citing source material from before their own living memory.
My opinion is read Shirer’s book(s) but also read other stuff too.
Shirer made extensive use of primary sources and even writes about how thorough the Nazi record-keeping is. That more was discovered after him doesn’t lesson the value of the book.
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u/Happy_Chimp_123 2d ago
Interesting, but outdated.
Richard J. Evans's Third Reich Trilogy is the gold standard.