Latest Issue of Civil War History (March 2008) Looks Promising

After having reservations similar to Harry Smeltzer’s, I finally decided to resubscribe to Civil War History, a journal published by The Kent State University Press, just recently. I was rewarded with the March 2008 issue pictured at left, which has only one article focusing on the usual race and gender topics seemingly overwhelmingly favored by this publication. The one tangentially race-related article also happens to be interesting to me based on its subject city of Alton, Illinois. I live about 35 miles from Alton and I’m very familiar with the area. The second article is entitled Measures of War: A Quantitative Examination of the Civil War’s Destructiveness in the Confederacy. This topic would have been interesting to me regardless, but it is especially so now given my recent read of Mark Grimsley’s The Hard Hand of War. The last article is South of the Border: Ulysses S. Grant and the French Intervention, a topic I know very little about but which I eagerly look forward to reading. I hope this move away from exclusively race and gender articles continues with each new issue.