nerdofdoom's review against another edition
2.0
Pretty scattered. It took me two tries to actually read it. it seems full of holes. It was awesome to see him right about the Civil War for more than a few sentences though.
socraticgadfly's review against another edition
3.0
Meet the real John Keegan. It's not pretty, but it's honest, which is why the book got 3 stars rather than even fewer.
The best part is the first one-fifth. It's not about any particular battle, or any particular geography behind a battle or campaign. Rather, it's about Keegan's impressions of American from his various trips.
He apparently thought that 1990s America was the best of 1950s Eisenhower picket-fence America mixed with an honest addressing, and near-solving, of racism. At least that's the impression he leaves me. Keegan's favorite part of America is the South, which he calls the most European. (Reality? In recent years, Europeans have said they consider San Francisco the most European city in America.) Keegan talks in the written version of hallowed whispers about Episcopalian vestries and the Southern pace and sense of life. It's not the slower pace, as he's in places like Richmond and Charleston, but rather, it seems, the Southern grandeur.
The grandeur of the lost cause. Which issue he never discusses.
His racial stance becomes much more clear in the last main chapter, which is about the wars with the Plains Indians. In one spot, he calls them untrustworthy repeated treaty-breakers, while never saying similar about the US government. Even worse, to put it into today's language, he then accuses the Plains Indians of Plains Indians "privilege" for failure to stand aside and let industries white settlers farm this often unfarmable land after all the bison are killed.
No, really! (Well, he doesn't discuss the near unfarmability of much of the High Plains.)
At this point, he had come to seem like a cut or two above, but no more than that, of a genteel racist.
Even worse, his sense of American geography is shakiest here. Unless we've flattened the Continental Divide with nuclear bombs, the Green River ain't a tributary of the Platte!
But, I didn't rank it below 3 stars in part because this honest look at John Keegan was offered without either guile or vim.
That said, now that I know more about Keegan's political background ... and some particulars of his military history writing I didn't know before, this doesn't surprise me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keegan
The best part is the first one-fifth. It's not about any particular battle, or any particular geography behind a battle or campaign. Rather, it's about Keegan's impressions of American from his various trips.
He apparently thought that 1990s America was the best of 1950s Eisenhower picket-fence America mixed with an honest addressing, and near-solving, of racism. At least that's the impression he leaves me. Keegan's favorite part of America is the South, which he calls the most European. (Reality? In recent years, Europeans have said they consider San Francisco the most European city in America.) Keegan talks in the written version of hallowed whispers about Episcopalian vestries and the Southern pace and sense of life. It's not the slower pace, as he's in places like Richmond and Charleston, but rather, it seems, the Southern grandeur.
The grandeur of the lost cause. Which issue he never discusses.
His racial stance becomes much more clear in the last main chapter, which is about the wars with the Plains Indians. In one spot, he calls them untrustworthy repeated treaty-breakers, while never saying similar about the US government. Even worse, to put it into today's language, he then accuses the Plains Indians of Plains Indians "privilege" for failure to stand aside and let industries white settlers farm this often unfarmable land after all the bison are killed.
No, really! (Well, he doesn't discuss the near unfarmability of much of the High Plains.)
At this point, he had come to seem like a cut or two above, but no more than that, of a genteel racist.
Even worse, his sense of American geography is shakiest here. Unless we've flattened the Continental Divide with nuclear bombs, the Green River ain't a tributary of the Platte!
But, I didn't rank it below 3 stars in part because this honest look at John Keegan was offered without either guile or vim.
That said, now that I know more about Keegan's political background ... and some particulars of his military history writing I didn't know before, this doesn't surprise me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keegan
onceandfuturelaura's review against another edition
3.0
another book that haunts me. I have mixed feelings about Prof. Keegan, but his description of battles superimposed on city street grids was incredibly powerful.
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