Yup, another book on Gettysburg, which is the largest battle ever fought on North American soil, and one which, no doubt, changed the course of American history. But this is a book well-worth tackling regardless of how much, or how little, you've read on the subject before.
Allen Guelzo is a capable historian and an interesting writer. He has a knack for laying out established facts, which he then fleshes out in light of the opinions and observations of the participants (Guelzo makes extensive use of personal correspondence from the period). Guelzo also has a knack for making very sane judgments (judgments which won't please revisionists) about the events he's just discussed. And where applicable, he teases out the ramifications of these events for subsequent American history.
If you've read Michael Shaara's Killer Angels or have seen the glue-on beard marred epic movie "Gettysburg" (which actually isn't bad, except for Martin Sheen's horrible portrayal of Robert E. Lee as some sort of Eastern mystic), then you probably believe that the South's failure to capture Little Round Top toward the end of the second day (July 2) was the turning point of the three-day battle. Not true.
For more, see: http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/the-latest-post/2013/7/25/gettysburg.html
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