[.ca] These Honored Dead: How The Story Of Gettysburg Shaped ... (ISBN 0306813823)

Sloppy research:
Although Desjardins' book contains a number of interesting revelations, his arguments are often compromised by sloppy research. For example, his key claim that "Little Round Top" was not known by that name until "years" after the battle was proven false nearly a decade ago. Desjardin is especially weak when he tries to play photo-detective. He mentions with praise the research of photo historian William Frassanito, but doesn't seem to have actually read Frassanito's books very carefully. Desjardin's arguments also suffer from the obvious omission of pertinent, but contrary information

No ideological ax:
It was refreshing to read a Civil War book by an author with no ideological ax to grind. Desjardins raises some of the fundamental historical and historiographical questions in trying to determine: " How do we know what we know?" Obviously, using Gettysburg as the centerpiece for discussion, but branching into " Lost Cause" critiques, Desjardins has produced an entertaining, often humorous, an ultimately valuable assessment of the many myths that surround Civil War discussion. Perhaps the most striking and revealing commentary deals with how the tradition of Gettysburg worship and celebration evolved, and how the controversial selection and placing of monuments transpired. Although some of the probing covers previously analyzed terrain, the author brings a new angle, and thankfully, non-ideological viewpoint to the topics. An enjoyable, and informative read from cover to cover.

Insightful:
The author raises some very good questions and points. His focus does drift away from Gburg from time to time and covers more of the myths of the overall war. The book is actually somewhat heart breaking for us students of the ACW because you walk away realizing that many of the accounts of the war you may have read are not necessarily entirely factual. Again, the point of the book is to explore the myths and in doing so the author asks many questions. Unfortunately there are not many answers, although many of the key points are put to rest (i.e. Gburg for shoes, "Historicus", etc.) There was something missing from the book that doesn't allow me to give it a better rating, and I'm not quite sure what it is. It is a little scatter brained and redundant at certain points. Another pass from an editor would have helped. There is also a somewhat half-assed attempted to psycho analyze some of the motivation behind the embellishments/straight out lying, etc. that was a bit elementary, and quite frankly presumptuous. But most of all, I think the book needs to be re-organized. There should have been a "top ten" of sorts, myth #1 Shoes, myth #2 Ewell controversy, myth #3 Longstreet controversy, myth #4 Sicles controversy, etc. I have the feeling that the book was on the short side, and things were added and restated to beef it up. The writing almost would have worked better as a series of articles in a ACW or history mag. That being said, it is very insightful and for that it gets my 3/maybe 3.5 star rating. Not for the novice, I think you are better reading a treatment of the battle, at least to help you understand why men would lie/exaggerate their reports. The biggest surprise of course is the heroic stand of the 20th Maine which gets toned down to realistic proportions and brings Chamberlin back to earth. In short, good reading overall, but could use the touch of a better editor, and less preaching.

Disapointing and Poorly Written:
...I decided to invest in Desjardin's book to add to my modest Civil War collection. At just over 200 pages it is extremely thin for the $26 list price. More distressing, the author makes it thinner still by repeating the same passages over and over. No less then four times does the author recount (in detail) how Michael Sharra's "The Killer Angels" was written as a quasi Shakespearean history, that Sharra's book was rejected by countless publishers, that it did not sell well in post-Vietnam America, that the book won the Pulitzer Prize and eventually sold millions of copies before it was made into the movie Gettysburg. At least three times does Desjardin inform the reader that Ted Turner mistated the number of Gettysburg dead on national cable televesion after the showing of the movie he bankrolled. In consecutive chapters early in the book the author relates the same long quotation, attributed to Charles Wainwright, as if the reader had never heard it the first time. He wastes enourmous time talking about the claims of Daniel Sickles and Jubal Early as forming the basis of accepted myth about the battle when both men's assertions have long since been rebutted and have no popular credibility whatsoever (as long ago as 1965, I remember NPS employees manning the electronic battlefield showing the Sickles' salaint and stating that the General threatened the entire Union posistion by advancing his Corps into the Peach Orchard against orders). In any event, these are old stories that are, at least, twice told. In telling the Chamberlain myth, the author stills gives his fellow Maine native (and the subject of his prior book) a big break by saying that the myth sprang up without Chamberlain's sanction. What he omitted was the Colonel's venoumous, vindictive and very sucessful campaign to prevent the Confederate commander, Oates, from placing a memorial to his men anywhere close to Little Round Top, believing it to be his exclusive province. These are some examples of hit and miss scholarship and poor writing. The editing is a mess, as apparent in the footnotes and the bibliography where the wrong authors are credited with the wrong materials. Lastly, Desjardin falls into his own trap when he says the Bible is a contradictory text because it advises to take "an eye for an eye" while also commanding to "turn the other cheek". First of all it is intellectual dishonesty to compare the law of the Old Testament to the Gospels of the New Testament. Second, the "eye for an eye" language is not the Bible, it is the Code of Hamurabi. Whoops, Mr. Desjardin.

Adequate but hardly inspired.:
Listened to the audio version. Have to admit that my interest in this was sparked by "The Killer Angels"--wanting to know how much was fact or fiction. And I must also agree with the reviewer who thought this book desperately needed an editor. You might compare this book to a Senior Thesis...long on words and shorter than you'd like on fact and substance. But then, I came to this book wanting the arguments, wanting the sources and an evaluation of them. Not a simple, terse statement that a source was unreliable followed by an entire dismissal of anything to do with the tainted source. (Disregarding some sources would be ignoring as much truth as fiction.) I was especially interested in the issues and history surrounding some of the accounts of Col. Chamberlain and the defence of Little Round Top. But I wanted to know what the likely truth was, not just what the author thought was suspect. And I had a hard time believing that many of the details the author wanted to discuss (like the kind of hat someone might have worn or whether there was a Buster Kilrain) were important enough to put in a book. And most readers aren't that worried about the exact spot where someone might have died. If this book was directed to a general audience, it often failed to raise issues sufficiently meaty to merit any hype. If it was directed to an audience of specialists or buffs, they would be disappointed by the lack of detail and documentation. Desjardins seems to take his audience for fools, typically portraying the worst examples of ignorance, vapid credulity, and mercenary exploits connected with Gettysburg. No thinking person assumes everything happened just as it's portrayed in a movie. I can make up my mind about various myths just fine. I just wanted information to work from and I was quite content when I got it. Just my perspective. There was definitely some worthwhile material. I think the author was reflecting more of his background in the park than is useful for a wide audience...most of us don't care too much when or how certain monuments were put in place, though some of the machinations behind them were interesting. And I think he erred unhappily on the side of talking around some of the real debates so as not to become embroiled in them. But it isn't really a waste of time. What I want to know is what the battle means to the author. Was it significant or not, and in what way? Just curious!