Many Americans, argues Michael C. C. Adams, tend to think of the Civil War as more glorious, less awful, than the reality. Millions of tourists flock to battlefields each year as vacation destinations, their perceptions of the war often shaped by reenactors who work hard for verisimilitude but who cannot ultimately simulate mutilation, madness, chronic disease, advanced physical decay.
In Living Hell: the Dark Side of the Civil War, Adams tries a different tack, clustering the voices of myriad actual participants on the firing line or in the hospital ward to create a virtual historical reenactment.
Michael C.C. Adams will be discussing and signing his book at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Rookwood Pavilion on Saturday, December 6 at 2pm.