With My Face to the Enemy: Perspectives on the Civil War

""I've always disliked the dismissive term `Civil War buff,' which seems unfairly to separate the historian from the enthusiast,"" writes Robert Cowley, What If? editor and founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. With My Face to the Enemy: Perspectives on the Civil War aims to keep the two firmly together, with its 34 substantive, jargon-free essays. Leading scholars like David Herbert Donald (on Lincoln's early presidency) and Gary W. Gallagher (on Robert E. Lee's early career) check in, as does Tom Wicker (on the Battle of Stones River). In all, 30-plus essays take readers from ""First Shots"" to ""The Last Act."" (June 4)