Don't Know Much About the Civil War

Everything You Need to Know About America's Greatest Conflict but Never Learned

By: Kenneth C. Davis

Narrated by: Kenneth C. Davis

Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Don't Know Much About® the Civil War: Everything You Need to Know About America's Greatest Conflict but Never Learned. What was the leading cause of death among Civil War soldiers? Why did Robert E. Lee resign from the U.S. Army? Which group was exempt from the Confederate draft? Whom did the Emancipation Proclamation emancipate? Was the Gettysburg Address truly written on the back of an envelope? Did General Sherman really say, "War is hell"?

If you can't answer most of these questions, you're not alone. Millions of Americans, bored by dull textbooks, are in the dark about the most significant event in American history. Too many others thought they learned it all from Gone with the Wind.

Best selling author Kenneth C. Davis sheds light on these and other questions about America's greatest conflict in this fascinating program, providing listeners with everything they "need to know" about the Civil War. With his deft wit and unconventional style, Davis sorts out the players, the politics, and the key events. Drawing on moving eyewitness accounts of the people who lived through the war, he brings listeners into the world of the ordinary men and women who made history - the side of the story that textbooks never tell.

©1996 Kenneth C. Davis & Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing (P)1996 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House Inc.

Great Book for the Civil War Buff

I bought this book for my roommate who is a civil war buff. I mean he reads lots of book on the topic. He loved this audible book. He actually listened to it twice back to back. He said he learned alot of tidbits about what was actually going on during the time period that he really didn't get from other books. After this book I went out and bougth 3 other, You don't Know much about...books and none have been as good as this one.

Every breath you take

I could hear every breath you take for gods sake ..Very annoying after every sentence the narrator took a deep breath into the mirco-phone after I noticed it I heard nothing else..Esp if wearing headphones..Other than that the information was given a way that Only Kenneth C. Davis can (Fun.)

Low-hassle overview of the basics of the war

I didn't want a blow by blow rehearsal of every battle. I wanted the background, contributing factors, results... and a little decoding of the civil war special words and ideas. I wanted to be conversant on the topic without wading through all of the minutia. This book did exactly that. There are little irritations in the technical elements of the production, but the content was right on target.

Informative, but beware of bias

The audiobook is good for obtaining facts and contains some interesting trivia. It is well structured, dry, but informative. However, the author's bias is clear. He is dismissive of any interpretation other than the traditional text book account of the origins and causes of the war. His insinuations about the motives of indivual Southerners and the collective South are generalized, shallow and insulting. Since his books are aimed at people who "don't know much about" a particular subject, it seems that Mr. Davis uses his platform to indoctrinate the "great unwashed" novice audience. I have read other books by this author and found this to be the case in those books as well.