Publisher's Synopsis
"It is well that war is so terrible," Robert E. Lee reportedly said, "or we would grow too fond of it." The essays collected here make the case that we have grown too fond of it, and therefore we must make the war terrible again. Taking a "freakonomics" approach to Civil War studies, contributors use a seemingly unusual story, incident, or phenomenon to cast new light on the nature of the war itself. Collectively the essays remind us that war is always about damage, even at its most heroic.
