"War is Hell": Blogging Shelby Foote's Civil War: A Narrative

Hi, Popology readers.I'm really revamping my blog philosophy for the next few months. In the immediate present, there will be no pop culture quips or song analyses. I'm going to be reading and live blogging Shelby Foote's Civil War: A Narrative. The American Civil War was the crucible of the modern United States and studying it in depth through this book will really give me and y'all (I am from the South) a good perspective of American history as a whole.

But why Civil War: A Narrative. Isn't Shelby Foote a novelist? Didn't he not use footnotes? First, the book's sheer length. The only history book I have in my library that compares to Civil War in this way is Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. At over 3,000 pages, Foote does a great job describing the military and political history of Civil War era United States in depth, but he doesn't really discuss American economy or culture at this time, probably because the war transcended all areas of life.

Because I'm reading this great work of American history, the format of Popology will change. First, I'm temporarily changing my blog's name from "Popology" to "War is Hell". I will change the background from cool, random books to a more somber template. However, there may still be the occasional poem, list, or film/book related post to relieve the tension, especially if I fall back in reading.

I will do a short summary of 5-10 pages from the book and include Foote's own subheadings. Then, I will analyze and unpack his portraits of the main figures and events of the Civil War and ask lots of questions, many rhetorical. I will end every blog post with a "What if?" on my reading. Feel free to comment, even negatively.

Disclaimer: I am a pacifist and believe war is unnecessary and horrific, thus the blog's new name. Civil wars especially pain me because they basically pit families against each other. E.g. George Crittenden and Thomas Crittenden. However, I will try to be an objective historian and not rant about the idea of war, Southern racism, the destruction of my home state Tennessee, and Sherman's march through Georgia.

"War is cruelty. You cannot refine it."- William Tecumseh Sherman