Although the special section on the Civil War takes up more than 20 pages in the forthcoming July/August issue of Books & Culture, the books treated there make up only a small fraction of recent titles on the war, its causes, and its effects.

Informed estimates put the number of published titles on the conflict at over 60,000 and rising fast. That number translates into more than 40 books for each day of the conflict, or about one book for every 70 men who served under arms. Answers to why this river of writing exists are provided in substantial reflections like Harry Stout's essay " 'Baptism in Blood,' " which leads off the special section, and in a number of serious books that now address this question directly. An easier task is to indicate directions of recent academic scholarship, which is attempted here after checking out the catalogues and websites of only a few university presses, and (with a couple of exceptions) only for titles published since 2000.

Military history has for a long time moved in complementary directions. Studies of individual battles, in which the hunt for firsthand sources extends always more widely, include Joanna M. McDonald, The First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 18-21, 1861 (Oxford, 2001); Kenneth W. Noe, Perryville: The Grand Havoc of Battle (Kentucky, 2001); and Carol Kettenburg Dubbs, Defend This Old Town: Williamsburg During the Civil War (LSU, 2002).

Of special note among books on individual battles is James M. McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam (Oxford, 2002), reviewed in the special section by Roger Lundin, a volume that adds to McPherson's impressive array of thoroughly researched, yet highly accessible Civil War histories. This book is important for its account of why Antietam (or Sharpsburg) was so critical for the overall war—primarily because it allowed Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and so ensured that Britain and France would not recognize the South. But it is also significant as a herald of broader trends in history writing, since it is an early contribution to an Oxford University Press series on contingent events in the past that decisively altered national or international history. (On the same theme, see Donald Yerxa's interview with Jay Winik in the special section.) A different treatment of an individual battle has been provided by Daniel J. Hoisington, Gettysburg and the Christian Commission (Edinborough, 2002), which is especially welcome for integrating the religiously inspired work of a prominent voluntary agency into broader accounts of this much-studied battle.

Titles on the skills and failings of generals abound; the best of them also add measurably to what can be learned about much broader matters as well—for example, Gabor S. Borritt, ed., Jefferson Davis's Generals (Oxford paper, 2000); Robert K. Krick, The Smoothbore Volley that Doomed the Confederacy: The Death of Stonewall Jackson and Other Chapters on the Army of Northern Virginia (LSU, 2002); and Frederick C. Newell, With Sheridan in the Final Campaign Against Lee, ed. E. J. Wittenberg (LSU, 2002). Another older staple is the unit history.

Those who have viewed Ron Maxwell's films, Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, may have a special interest in Thomas A. Desjardin, Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine: The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign (Oxford paper, 2001), since it treats the regiment that Joshua Chamberlain led.

For some decades the most innovative writing on the war has featured broader studies of what the conflict entailed for political, economic, or social development, for the home front, or for the evolving place of the United States in the world. Recent political titles include a survey noteworthy for being authored by a British scholar, Brian Holden Reid, Civil War in the United States (Oxford/Arnold, 2002); an argument noteworthy for its attention to internal divisions within the South (many earlier books had done the same for the North), William W. Freehling, The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War (Oxford, 2001); and a much-cited reprint noteworthy for its contributors (including Bruce Catton and David Donald) as well as for its theme, Grady McWhiney, ed., Grant, Lee, Lincoln and the Radicals (1964; new LSU ed., 2001).

Fresh studies linking the political and the cultural are more common than before, including Robert E. Bonner, Colors and Blood: Flag Passions of the Confederate South (Princeton, 2002); and Joan E. Cashin, ed., The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War (Princeton, 2002).

Social historians continue to push profitably toward new insights about domestic, female, and local realities, for example, Stephen W. Berry II, All That Makes a Man: Love and Ambition in the Civil War South (Oxford, 2002); Carol K. Bleser and Lesley J. Gordon, eds., Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives (Oxford, 2001); and Catherine Clinton, ed., Southern Families at War: Loyalty and Conflict in the Civil War South (Oxford, 2000).