Louis P. Masur

One hundred and fifty years after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still captures the American imagination, and its reverberations can still be felt throughout America's social and political landscape.
Louis P. Masur's The Civil War: A Concise History offers a masterful and eminently readable overview of the war's multiple causes and catastrophic effects. Masur begins by examining the complex origins of the war, focusing on the pulsating tensions over states rights and slavery. The book then proceeds to cover, year by year, the major political, social, and military events, highlighting two important themes: how the war shifted from a limited conflict to restore the Union to an all out war that would fundamentally transform Southern society, and the process by which the war ultimately became a battle to abolish slavery. Masur explains how the war turned what had been a loose collection of fiercely independent states into a nation, remaking its political, cultural, and social institutions. But he also focuses on the soldiers themselves, both Union and Confederate, whose stories constitute nothing less than America's Iliad. In the final chapter Masur considers the aftermath of the South's surrender at Appomattox and the clash over the policies of reconstruction that continued to divide President and Congress, conservatives and radicals, Southerners and Northerners for years to come.
In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley wrote that the war had "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." From the vantage of the war's sesquicentennial, this concise history of the entire Civil War era offers an invaluable introduction to the dramatic events whose effects are still felt today.… (más)

Last year was the 40th anniversary of the release of Born to Run, the album many critics consider to be Bruce Springsteen's finest work (for me, the top spot circulates among a handful of albums depending on my mood and circumstances). This book is presented as an in-depth look at the making of that album, including a song-by-song analysis that was really interesting to someone like me who loves music but doesn't play or know much about the particulars.

Unfortunately, that's only one chapter of the book and the only chapter that was completely new to me. The rest of the book is fleshed out with an overview of Springsteen's life and career, both before and after Born to Run, that as a card-carrying crazyfan I was already very familiar with, even to the extent of being able to identify which interviews or articles various quotes were pulled from. And the tense drama surrounding the recording of the album, which took months and months, while reviewed adequately here is better covered in the documentary Wings for Wheels that accompanied the re-mastered version of the album back in 2005.

So superfans won't find a whole lot new in this book. But casual fans or readers interested in musical analysis or the music-making process should get much more value out of it. The writing is fine, and in my limited judgment the musical analysis seems original and accurate (there's lots of talk about how various songs on BTR modulate from major to minor chords and the effect that's meant to give, and even though I listened to each song several times as I read the segment about it in the book, I'm still not sure I could identify a minor chord if one walked up and spit on me).… (más)