The Brothers' War

Reed, John C. (John Calvin), 1836-1910Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
861K words
Chapters
87

Tags

English Originals World HistoryMilitary Historical ReappraisalMilitary StrategySocial ObservationPortrait GalleryRise and FallFate and FortuneHeroismPatriotismDocumentary NarrativeTurbulent Era

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Brothers' War by John C. ReedAuthor: Reed, John C. (John Calvin), 1836-1910,Language: English, Class: E456: History: America: Civil War period (1861-1865), Release Date: Oct 31, 2011

Editor's review

This book is John C. Reed's account of a family and political saga intertwined during the Civil War era, representing a relatively personal observational perspective within the literature of American Civil War history. Its value lies not in offering a panoramic military history, but in allowing readers to sense the divisions and choices of that era through specific personal relationships and epistolary-style narration. As a public-domain e-book from Project Gutenberg, it preserves the original text, making it suitable for extended reading by those interested in Civil War social history, family history, and nineteenth-century American political discourse. The prose carries the sensibility and period stance of the nineteenth century; readers should approach it with a critical awareness of historical sources and not use it as a modern academic general history. It is best read alongside a Civil War chronology and other secondary studies, placing the names and events back into their historical coordinates. For readers studying the digitization of public-domain literature and the spread of early e-books, this book also offers a sample for observing how texts are reorganized.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a chronology of major Civil War events first before entering the text, to avoid confusing people and events
  2. Keep a notebook to record names and family relationships appearing in the book for easy cross-reference
  3. Read alongside a modern general history of the Civil War to distinguish personal narrative from historical framework
  4. Excerpt stance-laden statements in the book to train the habit of critical reading of historical sources

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book a complete history of the Civil War? No. It is closer to a personal account of family and era than a systematic military history. Readers who wish to build an overall framework should read it alongside a modern general history or chronology, placing the people and events back into their historical context.
How difficult is the English? Is it suitable for reading the original directly? The text carries nineteenth-century English sentence patterns and vocabulary, with a distance from modern English. Readers with some foundation in English reading who are willing to verify historical background can read it directly; otherwise, it is advisable to read a relevant Chinese introduction first and then compare it with the original.
What is special about the Gutenberg edition? It is a public-domain e-book that preserves the original text, without modern scholarly annotations or introductions. Its advantages are that it is free, easily accessible, and textually complete; its limitation is the lack of scholarly apparatus, requiring readers to supplement background materials themselves.

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About the author

Reed, John C. (John Calvin), 1836-1910 Author · 1836–1910

John C. Reed (1836–1910) was a nineteenth-century author about whom public information is limited; few records of his life and career survive, and his output appears modest, with only two works held in this collection. Judging from these works, his subjects span two distinct fields: natural geology and historical narrative. One introduces readers to the geological origins and changing landforms of the Grand Teton National Park area, translating specialist geological knowledge into an account accessible to general readers. The other turns to human affairs amid war and conflict, using a story-driven approach to present the tension and upheaval of historical events. Though different in subject, both reflect a writing orientation aimed at ordinary readers, with an emphasis on clarity and readability. Because biographical material is scarce, the details of his life cannot be firmly established, and the later circulation and study of his works remain limited; the summary above can only be based on titles and subject matter.