This series is easily the best Civil War work out there. Foote is
magnificent, giving more than just battle details, giving details about the p..Show More »olitics, society, and personalities that make this war the defining moment of our nation. The narrator is magnificent. A must listen and well worth the hours (and I mean hours) of listening.

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It's an incredible book, and the narration is beautiful. If you can't have Shelby Foote reading it himself, Grover Gardner is a good alternative. Foot..Show More »e carries the story well past the usual Appomattox tableau, with a riveting description of Lincoln's assassination, a careful exploration of the consequences of that act, and a long, elegiac, unbearably sad narration of the winding down of the war and the outcome, especially for the freed slaves. Everybody lost. The long national nightmare ended in the age of the robber barons and union busting; and blacks found themselves frozen out, hunted down, and at times massacred by North and South alike.

It took me about a year of off-and-on listening to work through all three volumes. It was worth every second. I can't recommend this audiobook too highly. Yes, you need other viewpoints for balance, but no one else tells the story in such an utterly enthralling way and with such captivating and humanizing detail.

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