{"product_id":"living-hell-michael-c-c-adams-9781421412214","title":"Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA senior military historian presents an unflinching account of the human costs of the Civil War.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany Americans, argues Michael C. C. Adams, tend to think of the Civil War as more glorious, less awful, than the reality. Millions of tourists flock to battlefields each year as vacation destinations, their perceptions of the war often shaped by reenactors who work hard for verisimilitude but who cannot ultimately simulate mutilation, madness, chronic disease, advanced physical decay. In \u003ci\u003eLiving Hell\u003c\/i\u003e, Adams tries a different tack, clustering the voices of myriad actual participants on the firing line or in the hospital ward to create a virtual historical reenactment.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePerhaps because the United States has not seen conventional war on its own soil since 1865, the collective memory of its horror has faded, so that we have sanitized and romanticized even the experience of the Civil War. Neither film nor reenactment can fully capture the hard truth of the four-year conflict. \u003ci\u003eLiving Hell\u003c\/i\u003e presents a stark portrait of the human costs of the Civil War and gives readers a more accurate appreciation of its profound and lasting consequences.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdams examines the sharp contrast between the expectations of recruits versus the realities of communal living, the enormous problems of dirt and exposure, poor diet, malnutrition, and disease. He describes the slaughter produced by close-order combat, the difficulties of cleaning up the battlefields--where tens of thousands of dead and wounded often lay in an area of only a few square miles--and the resulting psychological damage survivors experienced.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing extensively on letters and memoirs of individual soldiers, Adams assembles vivid accounts of the distress Confederate and Union soldiers faced daily: sickness, exhaustion, hunger, devastating injuries, and makeshift hospitals where saws were often the medical instrument of choice. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInverting Robert E. Lee's famous line about war, Adams suggests that too many Americans become fond of war out of ignorance of its terrors. Providing a powerful counterpoint to Civil War glorification, \u003ci\u003eLiving Hell\u003c\/i\u003e echoes William Tecumseh Sherman's comment that war is cruelty and cannot be refined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eOur Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861-1865\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This excellent and provocative work concludes with a chapter suggesting how the image of Southern military superiority endured in spite of defeat.\"--\u003ci\u003eCivil War History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Adams's imaginative connections between culture and combat provide a forceful reminder that Civil War military history belongs not in an encapsulated realm, with its own categories and arcane language, but at the center of the study of the intellectual, social, and psychological currents that prevailed in the mid-nineteenth century.\"--\u003ci\u003eJournal of American History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Best War Ever: America and World War II\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Adams has a real gift for efficiently explaining complex historical problems.\"--\u003ci\u003eReviews in American History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Not only is this mythologizing bad history, says Adams, it is dangerous as well. Surrounding the war with an aura of nostalgia both fosters the delusion that war can cure our social ills and makes us strong again, and weakens confidence in our ability to act effectively in our own time.\"--\u003ci\u003eJournal of Military History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Michael C. C. Adams\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1421412217\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781421412214\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Johns Hopkins University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/15\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.21lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.34h x 6.25w x 0.95d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/18\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/10\/2014 pg. 69\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2014 pg. 107\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/01\/2014 pg. 325","brand":"Michael C. C. Adams","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44129347731711,"sku":"9781421412214","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_10e94237-3a7e-4d02-b3cc-e055731b6790.jpg?v=1687463404","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/living-hell-michael-c-c-adams-9781421412214","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}