Here are 100 books that Confederates fans have personally recommended if you like
Confederates.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I’m a New Zealand philosopher who’s written a lot about the human enhancement debate. Philosophers are well known for their willingness to defend unpopular conclusions against all critics. Sometimes they engage in what I call “philosophical shit-stirring". You may think that’s a profanity but it’s actually a technical term. I’ve advocated some deliberately unpopular shit-stirring conclusions in the past. One of these is liberal eugenics - the idea that you can turn an evil like eugenics into something good by prefacing it with the feel-good term “liberal”. These dialogues are the beginning of a philosophical stock-take on what we should or might become.
There’s a lot of thoughtless talk by techno-optimistic philosophers about futures in which we all get to become superintelligent and live for thousands of years if we can apply the right tech to ourselves.
Sykes describes fascinating research on the Neanderthals, beings who were almost, but not quite, us. Reading her book, I wondered what it might have been like to grow up as the child of a union between a Homo sapiens and a Neanderthal. I found this especially useful when we consider future relationships between people determined to remain human and others who want tech to make them posthuman ASAP.
There’s so much information to gleen from Sykes to help us guess at how posthumans might treat beings whom they view as different and possibly inferior.
** WINNER OF THE PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE 2021 **
'Beautiful, evocative, authoritative.' Professor Brian Cox
'Important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity.' Yuval Noah Harari
Kindred is the definitive guide to the Neanderthals. Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience at the cutting-edge of Palaeolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside cliches of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them…
The night before my dear friend Gina faced a delicate surgery that could have left her paralyzed from the waist down, she handed me a ziplock bag containing yellowed letters dating back to World War II. “No matter what happens to me, I want you to tell Bud’s story,” she said. “Promise me!” And so I did. What followed was a deep dive into what had happened to Gina’s uncle, Sergeant Bud Richardville, a young man drafted into the Army as the U.S. prepared to enter the war in Europe.
Once upon a time, war was portrayed as glorious. Smartly-dressed soldiers strutted off to battle as admiring crowds cheered their departure. But then came Erich Maria Remarque’s stunning semi-autographical rebuke. Remarque was conscripted into the Imperial German Army at 18 and was wounded in the poisonous trenches of World War I. While he survived, like many, he did not return home unscathed.
This book centers around young Paul Bäumer, an idealistic German boy raised in a picturesque village where patriotic speeches in school romanticize war and urge young men to sign up and fight for the Fatherland. He and his friends do just that and soon find themselves mired in the horrific conditions of trench warfare, a new kind of battle where little ground is ever made, and men die in all sorts of miserable ways.
As Paul and his peers struggle to do their duty, they succumb physically and…
The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in mind, there is no sense of adventure here, only the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war - of any war - told for a whole generation of victims.
I’ve written some dozen books. After publishing the first 10, I realized I love to write about young people just finding out who they are and what’s important to them. I love to look back at that impressionable age and watch it unfold. So my last two books were YA—one set at a Quaker prep school and the other set in a dystopian city-state where teenage boys could be killed when they turn eighteen, and teenage girls could be used for sexual exploitation and discarded as easily as old milk cartons. Those troubled, tumultuous, anything-can-happen hovering adulthood years from about fifteen to twenty-one fascinate me and inspire my writing.
Where to start? I’d read The Secret History and found it mesmerizing, but I loved this book more. It was more personal, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
I loved the premise and the relationships between the characters, even though they were completely flawed. I bought into everything they did and thought and wondered what I would have done in the same circumstances and conditions. The writing is extraordinary, and anyone who loves to read prose that sings will adore this book as I did.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the…
My name is Polly Schattel, and I’m a novelist, screenwriter, and film director. I wrote and directed the films Sinkhole, Alison, and Quiet River,and my written work includesThe Occultists, Shadowdays, and the novella 8:59:29.I grew up loving fantasy—Tolkien, Moorcock, Zelazny—but phased out of it somewhat when I discovered writers like Raymond Carver, EL Doctorow, and Denis Johnson. Their books seemed more adult and more complex, not to mention the prose itself was absolutely transporting. In comparison, the fantasy I’d read often felt quite rushed and thin, with get-it-done prose. I drifted away from genre fiction a bit, but dove back to it with my first novel, the historical dark fantasy The Occultists.
Mythago Wood is the kind of book that pulls you in and settles you down for a great, blanket-comfy, rainy-day read.
Concerning Ryhope Wood, an ancient, primeval forest in England that seems bigger the deeper in you go, it explores human psychology, both personal and collective, particularly the ideas of Carl Jung.
The forest somehow uses human psychology to create “mythagos,” complex unconscious creations built upon human memories and myths, and our hero Stephen Huxley is compelled to learn the secrets of the wood, whether or not he makes it back out alive.
As psychologically astute as it is thrilling, Holdstock’s book won the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and launched a successful series of fantasies that’s even more widely respected today.
Deep within the wildwood lies a place of myth and mystery, from which few return, and of those few, none remain unchanged.
Ryhope Wood may look like a three-mile-square fenced-in wood in rural Herefordshire on the outside, but inside, it is a primeval, intricate labyrinth of trees, impossibly huge, unforgettable ... and stronger than time itself.
Stephen Huxley has already lost his father to the mysteries of Ryhope Wood. On his return from the Second World War, he finds his brother, Christopher, is also in thrall to the mysterious wood, wherein lies a realm where mythic archetypes grow flesh and…
I have been captivated by the era of the American Civil War since I was ten years old at the beginning of the conflict’s centennial. I have taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Penn State University, and the University of Virginia. I have written, co-written, or edited more than 40 books on the subject. The compelling personalities, dramatic events, and profoundly important issues at stake compel my continuing attention to the war, its antecedents, and its short- and long-term impact. I recommend five classic titles on the Civil War era (one a trilogy, one a two-volume set, and three single volumes) that will reward readers in the third decade of the 21st Century.
Bell I. Wiley’s The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (1943) and The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (1952) marked a watershed in scholarship relating to the military history of the Civil War. It is no exaggeration to say that Wiley invented the genre of soldier studies that many decades later witnessed a profusion of works on the topic. The two books, which reflect a close reading of thousands of letters, explore such things as the process of enlistment, motivations to serve and remain in the ranks, what the men ate and wore, how they amused themselves, how they reacted to combat, why and in what numbers they deserted, how they related to people on the home fronts, attitudes toward the enemy, and religious practices. Although subsequent scholarship challenged some of Wiley’s conclusions, all historians who followed in his wake owed…
In this companion to The Life of Johnny Reb, Bell Irvin Wiley explores the daily lives of the men in blue who fought to save the Union. With the help of many soldiers' letters and diaries, Wiley explains who these men were and why they fought, how they reacted to combat and the strain of prolonged conflict, and what they thought about the land and the people of Dixie. This fascinating social history reveals that while the Yanks and the Rebs fought for very different causes, the men on both sides were very much the same. ""This wonderfully interesting book…
DeAnne Blanton retired from the National Archives in Washington, DC after 31 years of service as a reference archivist specializing in 18th and 19th century U.S. Army records. She was recognized within the National Archives as well as in the historical and genealogical communities as a leading authority on the American Civil War; 19th century women’s history; and the history of American women in the military.
This book is the best introduction to the many women who cast off traditional gender roles, and served the armies of the Union and Confederacy as spies, vivandierres, and soldiers. Leonard uses contemporary sources to prove that valor, complexity, and patriotism are not the sole purviews of men. This well-written book will make readers want to find out more about the Civil War women who refused to stay in their socially-mandated place.
Elizabeth Leonard has unearthed the stories of the hidden and forgotten women who risked their lives in the American Civil War. These women spied for their cause, remained on the front line as daughters of the regiment, and even enlisted to fight as men. Leonard investigates why they chose unconventional ways to play their part in the war and gives us a striking portrait of American women's lives in the 19th century.
I have always been fascinated by the Civil War and read many books about it for pleasure over the years. Then in 2010 I decided to get serious and undertook a full-length biography of Stonewall Jackson. Four extremely intense years later I published Rebel Yell, and followed it a few years later with Hymns of the Republic, about the war’s final year. So I have spent much of the past decade doing little else but thinking about and writing about the Civil War.
I discovered this book a few years ago while writing my biography of Jackson. The subject is probably the single most dazzling bit of tactical warfare in American history. Its relatively short duration—March through June, 1882—means that Cozzens can go deep, and go deep he does.
One of the most intriguing and storied episodes of the Civil War, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign has heretofore been related only from the Confederate point of view. Moving seamlessly between tactical details and analysis of strategic significance, Peter Cozzens presents a balanced, comprehensive account of a campaign that has long been romanticized but little understood. He offers new interpretations of the campaign and the reasons for Stonewall Jackson's success, demonstrates instances in which the mythology that has come to shroud the campaign has masked errors on Jackson's part, and provides the first detailed appraisal of Union leadership in the…
From a youth devouring the books of Bruce Catton to my formative years as a historian, I’ve been fascinated by the Civil War, especially the thinking and experiences of southerners who lived through the cataclysmic war years. In my teaching and writing, I’ve tried to focus on the lived experiences, the hopes and fears, of southerners who seemingly embraced secession and an independent Southern Confederacy in the expectation of a short, victorious war only to become disenchanted when the war they thought would come to pass turned into a long, bloody stalemate. The books I’ve listed share my passion for the war and open new and often unexpected windows into the Confederate experience.
Few images of the Confederacy are as enduring as that of the selfless sacrificing and unbounded enthusiasm of southern women for the Confederate cause. This groundbreaking study peels away this mythic image to reveal the conflicted feelings of elite white women as they struggled to cope with a crush of new responsibilities for which they were ill-prepared and longed for the return of their husbands and sons. The letters they sent President Davis and their men in the war registered a growing disillusionment with the Confederacy and a yearning to return to the comfort of their pre-war privileged positions.
When Confederate men marched off to battle, southern women struggled with the new responsibilities of directing farms and plantations, providing for families, and supervising increasingly restive slaves. Drew Faust offers a compelling picture of the more than half-million women who belonged to the slaveholding families of the Confederacy during this period of acute crisis, when every part of these women's lives became vexed and uncertain.
I'm an award-winning teacher and writer who introduces students and readers to war in a profession that today is at best indifferent to military history, and more often hostile. That gives me a wry sense of irony, as colleagues would rather teach about fashion than fascism and truffles over tragedy. Having written a multiple award-winning book that covered 2,000 years of war, frankly I was sickened by how the same mistakes were made over and again. It has made me devoted to exploring possibilities for humane behavior within the most inhumane and degraded moral environment humanity creates; where individuality is subsumed in collective violence and humanity is obscured as a faceless, merciless enemy.
Beautifully written masterwork on one of the most important wars of the 19th century. It takes the reader from the experience of ordinary soldiers in battle to key debates around the cabinet table, in a rare display of dexterity and understanding of all levels of war. You will enter Grant’s HQ from where he ran the critical Western theater of operations and sit across from Lincoln as he makes the key decision for a hard war that let the Union maximize its resources and win. And you will walk into Lee’s HQ where the Confederacy lost the war in bursts of Southern hubris that led to two ill-conceived invasions of the North that provoked the final crushing.
Now featuring a new Afterword by the author, this handy paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom is without question the definitive one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War including the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. From there it moves into…
I am a retired teacher, author, and researcher/presenter focusing on the real boys of the American Civil War. A Ray Bradbury short story in The Saturday Evening Post back in 1963 first sparked my interest. It focused on a drummer and his general at the Battle of Shiloh–a two-page conversation between them. There was no action. A teenager then, I decided I could do better and began what decades later would become my 4-book series, Journey Into Darkness, a story in four parts. In the years that followed, I became a middle-grade teacher, and my students learned about the Civil War by way of their peers.
I love that Jay’s book focused on the youngest to serve, not just in the Union Army but also in the Confederate service. He also delved into a group not mentioned by other researchers, the Home Guard–kids usually 6-12 years of age, most prevalent in the South. I also had the honor of several years of friendship with Jay Hoar by way of correspondence and phone calls.
I treasure his work as it allowed me to journey with these kids in their life stories and, when possible, to see who they were through their images, though many were from later in life. We exchanged our work, his nonfiction research for my historical fiction.
Just who were the youngest soldiers, Union or Confederate, of the Civil War? The culmination of 25 years' research, Professor Hoar presents the heroic, and sometimes tragic, aspects of the war, exemplified in the "littlest" Billy Yanks and Johnny Rebs. More than 40 concise biographies.
