The American Civil War historian is a low form of intelligent life. Why did it take 133 years and a non-historian, a lawyer, to piece together who this book was about and who had written it?
More books have been written in the English language about the Civil War than on any other subject. More books have been written in English on Abraham Lincoln than on any person save Jesus of Nazareth. There are three biographies of A.A. Humphreys, one by his kid and two by sycophants, all three obviously hagiographic, obvious even to a non-historian. Yet Mr. Arner writes in his introduction that there was "almost universal lack of recognition" of the book by historians he contacted before republishing it with his own introduction and afterword.
There is no excuse for this. Historians, when they write about Humphreys at all, just quote from the three hagiographies and from the official record which, Mr. Arner advises, Humphreys did his best to sanitize after the fact when there was unflattering material!
More books have been written in the English language about the Civil War than on any other subject. More books have been written in English on Abraham Lincoln than on any person save Jesus of Nazareth. There are three biographies of A.A. Humphreys, one by his kid and two by sycophants, all three obviously hagiographic, obvious even to a non-historian. Yet Mr. Arner writes in his introduction that there was "almost universal lack of recognition" of the book by historians he contacted before republishing it with his own introduction and afterword.
There is no excuse for this. Historians, when they write about Humphreys at all, just quote from the three hagiographies and from the official record which, Mr. Arner advises, Humphreys did his best to sanitize after the fact when there was unflattering material!
