I have used this space over the past couple of years to commemorate many events important in working class history, leftist history and just plain democratic history (hey, that is our heritage too). My idea, as explained in my profile, is to try to transmit to the younger generation of leftist militants a sense of the rich, if many times negative, history of our movement. With that in mind, I have noticed recently that while I have spilled a certain amount of justifiable ink on honoring John Brown and his band at Harper's Ferry and on the personage of Abraham Lincoln, also justifiable, I have not spent nearly enough time on some of the other great issues of the Civil War period itself. I begin to rectify that error here. And it is an error. A lot of what the United States have become in the world, for good or evil, stems from the events of that period.

Some of the books that I review in this space as I introduce subjects that I think will be of interest are those that first got me interested in the subject. Thus, the books tend to have older copyright dates and, in many cases, have been superseded by more recent (and generally, better) work on the subject. But I still see value in them as a starting point. That is the case here. I distinctly remember, after having gone through the basics of the American Civil War in my high school history class, going out to buy this book in order to better understand the question posed by the title of this book- why did the North win the Civil War? Although this book does not directly address some of the reasons that I would give now for why the North succeeded it nevertheless gave some, to me, provocative thoughts about the issues then.

This short book is a result of a conference held in the late 1950's at Gettysburg, in preparation for celebrating the Civil War Centennial, which discussed various historical points of view as to the basis for the Northern victory. Now there have been innumerable books on every conceivable aspect of the Civil War, from songs to sewing, so by this year 2008 so it is hard to say that this book sticks out. However this book represented the best thinking of the last generation of Civil War scholars on the general trends of the times. The subjects delved into-Northern and Southern economics, generalmanship, diplomacy, effects of war- weariness, Southern character defects have all been expanded on since. But here is a place to start an outline of the subject. This book also helps to understand one of the positive consequences of the Northern victory-the consolidation of a unitary trans-continental state. Of course, readers, let us keep our eyes on the prize- the real import of studying about the Civil War is to see how the great social issue of that day-the abolition of slavery got fought out to the finish. For that we need to look elsewhere.

This book takes a simple question and offers various answers from experts in the fields of military, economic, and social history. Each article, written by a separate author, approaches the question from a different perspective and offers easily assimilated and fascinating facts to support the offered hypothesis. The result is an informative book that is easy to read and digest in a matter of a few hours.

It is worth noting that the book focuses more heavily on the South rather than on the North, and I believe the title could more accurately be "Why the South lost the Civil War", so if you are looking for a definitive volume on the Union, this is probably not the place to look. Still, a wonderful source for the Civil War enthusiast.

The civil war does not represent a subject of great interest to me. Americans, killing Americans is basically depressing. This book, though, I find fascinating. It is a concise examination of how things, people, governments work. If you are a student of human nature, you will enjoy it. I continue to pick the book up, and will open to any page and reread passages that stimulate thought. For a civil war "buff", it will place you in deep waters illuminating why things turned out the way they did.