Overview

Lens of War grew out of an invitation to leading historians of the Civil War to select and reflect upon a single photograph. Each could choose any image and interpret it in personal and scholarly terms. The result is a remarkable set of essays by twenty-seven scholars whose numerous volumes on the Civil War have explored military, cultural, political, African American, women’s, and environmental history. The essays describe a wide array of photographs and present an eclectic approach to the assignment, organized by topic: Leaders, Soldiers, Civilians, Victims, and Places. Readers will rediscover familiar photographs and figures examined in unfamiliar ways, as well as discover little-known photographs that afford intriguing perspectives. All the images are reproduced with exquisite care. Readers fascinated by the Civil War will want this unique book on their shelves, and lovers of photography will value the images and the creative, evocative reflections offered in these essays.

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9780820348100

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Reviews

We view Alexander Gardner s famous 1865 close-up portrait of Lincoln, Mathew Brady s portrait of Ulysses S. Grant in 1864 after the Battle of Cold Harbor, Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveler, and Jeb Stuart in Confederate finery; in the accompanying essays we witness the rapture that these figures continue to cultivate in contemporary viewers. . . . Reading such entries, one is constantly reminded of the Roland Barthes s claim that photographs can carry a punctum, the tiny, almost-incidental details within pictures that rivet the gaze and become deeply mesmerizing and achingly personal.--Anthony W. Lee The Journal of American History

This book changes the way we see the American Civil War. By looking intently at photographs--some familiar and some rarely seen--these expert interpreters reveal aspects of the war visible in no other way. The elegant essays, like the images they examine, are windows into fascinating lives. --Edward L. Ayers, President, University of Richmond

Author Information

J. Matthew Gallman (Editor) J. MATTHEW GALLMAN is a professor of history at the University of Florida and author of Mastering Wartime: A Social History of Philadelphia during the Civil War, America’s Joan of Arc: The Life of Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, and the forthcoming Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front. Gary W. Gallagher (Editor) GARY W. GALLAGHER is the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War emeritus at the University of Virginia. He has written or edited numerous books on the Civil War, including Becoming Confederates: Paths to a New National Loyalty and Lens of War: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War, coedited with J. Matthew Gallman (both Georgia).

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