KotiRyhmätKeskusteluLisääAjan henki
Etsi sivustolta
Tämä sivusto käyttää evästeitä palvelujen toimittamiseen, toiminnan parantamiseen, analytiikkaan ja (jos et ole kirjautunut sisään) mainostamiseen. Käyttämällä LibraryThingiä ilmaiset, että olet lukenut ja ymmärtänyt käyttöehdot ja yksityisyydensuojakäytännöt. Sivujen ja palveluiden käytön tulee olla näiden ehtojen ja käytäntöjen mukaista.

Tulokset Google Booksista

Pikkukuvaa napsauttamalla pääset Google Booksiin.

Ladataan...

The grand design : strategy and the U.S. Civil War (2010)

Tekijä: Donald Stoker

JäseniäKirja-arvostelujaSuosituimmuussijaKeskimääräinen arvioMaininnat
1974136,810 (3.77)7
Of the tens of thousands of books exploring virtually every aspect of the Civil War, surprisingly little has been said about what was in fact the determining factor in the outcome of the conflict: differences in Union and Southern strategy. In The Grand Design, Donald Stoker provides a comprehensive and often surprising account of strategy as it evolved between Fort Sumter and Appomattox. Reminding us that strategy is different from tactics (battlefield deployments) and operations (campaigns conducted in pursuit of a strategy), Stoker examines how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis identified… (lisätietoja)
-
Ladataan...

Kirjaudu LibraryThingiin nähdäksesi, pidätkö tästä kirjasta vai et.

Ei tämänhetkisiä Keskustelu-viestiketjuja tästä kirjasta.

» Katso myös 7 mainintaa

näyttää 4/4
Should be subtitled "Won't Somebody Put on their Big Boy Pants, Do their Job, and Win this War?" ( )
  LordPetros | Aug 14, 2022 |
The author is a professor of military strategy at the U. S. Naval War College. The writer assumes that the reader has a reasonably broad body of knowledge about the war and begins his narrative at that point. It is a technical analysis of the military history of the war that I found a bit impersonal and at times rather dry. I felt the author should have followed the lead of Herman Hattaway, the author of How The North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Hattaway's book was a similar technical analysis of the military history of the war. He made good use of a large number of quotations from Bruce Catton, a writer with a journalist's eye for the human side of life, through the pages of his book and made it more engaging. This author had some interesting ideas but in my opinion history is first and last about people and this book lacked the personal touch.
The premise of the book is that the South lost the war because of their failure to create and implement an effective military strategy that met their political needs. This comes straight from the maxim of Clausewitz that war is the continuation of politics by other means. I agreed with several of the arguments which the author made to support this premise. At the beginning of the war the South possessed a mass of wealth in the form of a large cotton crop. Instead of selling the cotton and buying weapons they established an informal embargo to force England and France to come to their aid. They had memories of the French aid to the colonists which helped make the American Revolution successful. England and France did not come to their aid and it was not until the second year of the war that the South had decent arms for their soldiers.
In his assessment of the political leadership of the two combatants the author is very critical of Jefferson Davis and gives passing marks to Lincoln. Davis had much better experience for the task. He graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War and was Secretary of War under Buchanan. The only experience Lincoln had was a short term in the militia in the Black Hawk War. The difference was that Lincoln was a better manager and he was open to learning instead of assuming that he knew everything. Davis would have preferred the position of commanding general and took his role as commander-in-chief very seriously vetoing bills passed by the Southern Congress that he felt impinged on his powers in that role. At the same time although vastly outnumbered he insisted on attempting to defend every mile of the perimeter of the Confederacy. As a consequence the South quickly lost the forts that controlled the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers and then New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy.
While acknowledging Lee's tactical skills the author uses Lee's own words to describe his strategic failings. Lee is quoted as saying that the great victory at Chancellorsville did not bring to the South one acre of conquered territory and the Northern casualties would quickly be replaced. Lee's failure to win any battles on Northern territory doomed the South to defeat. In contrast Grant by 1864 was pressing the South at several critical points. The South was outnumbered and forced to wage a defensive war which they could not win. Grant kept Lee engaged in Virginia while Sherman destroyed the productive capacity of the lower South.
I did find reading the book worthwhile and learned a good deal. The author displayed a deft command of a large body of knowledge about the war. The author's big picture analysis of the war added a new level to my understanding of the history of the Civil War. While I could spend a lifetime reading about the Civil War I have the urge to move on to another topic. In the last year I have read two good books about Medieval history and I would like to learn more about that era. So many books, so little time. ( )
1 ääni wildbill | Sep 14, 2013 |
While there is not that much here to surprise the serious student of the American Civil War, Stoker brings a different perspective as an individual who teaches strategy to professional naval officers. How he judges the protagonists of the war is based very much on how they learned as the war progressed, meaning that Stoker gives high marks to men such as Lincoln, Sherman, Grant and, to a lesser extent, Lee. On the other hand, Stoker is particularly damning of Jefferson Davis, seeing him as a man who never understood his responsibilities and role.

Actually, the interesting question to Stoker is not so much whether the Confederacy could have won its independence (though Stoker believes that Richmond had its opportunities), but why the Union side did not win in 1862. Stoker's tragic figure is George McClellan, who for all the infuriating failings of personality had the right idea in his concepts of military strategy; it's just that the men capable of carrying out the operational design were not yet on stage. Of course, as Stoker also notes, early Union military victory means that the tragedy of Afro-American enslavement would remain embedded in American society. ( )
1 ääni Shrike58 | Oct 23, 2011 |
The Grand Design is a Civil War history from the point of view of the senior commanders, the generals and the Presidents of the Union and the Confederacy. Its focus is on the successes and failures of strategy and policy in the conduct of the war. It is not a panoramic history, and goes into very little detail about battles, politics, economics, social phenomena, except as they affected policy and strategy on either side. The style is informal but thoughtful; the author is fond of ironic, even sarcastic, asides about various military figures of the war. The picture that emerges is disheartening, mostly a chronicle of failures on both sides. Though sometimes it seems like Monday-morning quarterbacking, there is a lot of searching analysis of the thought and actions of specific generals. Few meet with the authors plaudits. His bêtes noires, however, are not always the usual suspects. Stoker is free with his judgments and they are always interesting. A quick and enjoyable read from an unusual perspective. ( )
  anthonywillard | Nov 22, 2010 |
näyttää 4/4
ei arvosteluja | lisää arvostelu
Sinun täytyy kirjautua sisään voidaksesi muokata Yhteistä tietoa
Katso lisäohjeita Common Knowledge -sivuilta (englanniksi).
Teoksen kanoninen nimi
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta. Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
Alkuteoksen nimi
Teoksen muut nimet
Alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi
Henkilöt/hahmot
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta. Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
Tärkeät paikat
Tärkeät tapahtumat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta. Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
Kirjaan liittyvät elokuvat
Epigrafi (motto tai mietelause kirjan alussa)
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta. Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
"You appear to be much absorbed, my venerable Spartan," says I to the General, as I handled the diaphanous vessel he was using as an act-drop in the theater of war.

The General frowned like an obdurate parent refusing to let his only daughter marry a coal-heaver, and says he:

"I'm absorbed in strategy. Eighteen months ago, I was informed by a contraband that sixty thousand unnatural rebels were intrenched somewhere near here, and having returned the contraband to his master, to be immediately shot, I resolved to overwhelm the rebels by strategy. Thunder!" says the General, perspiring like a pitcher of icewater in June, "if there's anything equal to diplomacy it's strategy."


ROBERT NEWELL, Union humorist,
from his Orpheus C. Kerr Papers,1862
Omistuskirjoitus
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta. Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
To Carol and Sarah
Ensimmäiset sanat
Sitaatit
Viimeiset sanat
Erotteluhuomautus
Julkaisutoimittajat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta. Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
Kirjan kehujat
Alkuteoksen kieli
Kanoninen DDC/MDS
Kanoninen LCC

Viittaukset tähän teokseen muissa lähteissä.

Englanninkielinen Wikipedia (2)

Of the tens of thousands of books exploring virtually every aspect of the Civil War, surprisingly little has been said about what was in fact the determining factor in the outcome of the conflict: differences in Union and Southern strategy. In The Grand Design, Donald Stoker provides a comprehensive and often surprising account of strategy as it evolved between Fort Sumter and Appomattox. Reminding us that strategy is different from tactics (battlefield deployments) and operations (campaigns conducted in pursuit of a strategy), Stoker examines how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis identified

Kirjastojen kuvailuja ei löytynyt.

Kirjan kuvailu
Yhteenveto haiku-muodossa

Current Discussions

-

Suosituimmat kansikuvat

Pikalinkit

Arvio (tähdet)

Keskiarvo: (3.77)
0.5
1 2
1.5
2
2.5
3 2
3.5 3
4 10
4.5 1
5 4

Oletko sinä tämä henkilö?

Tule LibraryThing-kirjailijaksi.

 

Lisätietoja | Ota yhteyttä | LibraryThing.com | Yksityisyyden suoja / Käyttöehdot | Apua/FAQ | Blogi | Kauppa | APIs | TinyCat | Perintökirjastot | Varhaiset kirja-arvostelijat | Yleistieto | 203,187,094 kirjaa! | Yläpalkki: Aina näkyvissä