Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is probably the best one volume civil war history there is. I'm giving it two stars only so that this review appears alongside some of the genuine two star reviews. As far as I can tell, pretty much all the people who don't like the book object to its political position: it isn't sufficiently pro-southern for their tastes. (Even the reviewer who complains about the mistake over the voters in West Virginia is basically annoyed by the idea that West Virginians didn't want to be part of the Confederacy. The books he cites propose a more pro-Southern view of the division of Virginia, which he prefers.) So to anyone reading the two-star reviews, I'd say that you definitely won't like this book, if, for example, you don't think the civil war had anything to do with slavery, or if you think Lincoln was a tyrant. But the fact is that McPherson's political position is very moderate and reasonable by just about anyone else's standards. As for the claim that the book is boring -- that must be straightforward dishonesty on the part of someone who was irritated by it's (moderate) political position. It's totally un-put-downable.