The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Killer Angels
Book Review: Amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this as a Junior in High School, and still have fond memories of such a stellar book. Currently, I'm in college to become a History teacher and definitely plan on implementing this into my class. This book had a major impact on my interest not only in the Civil War, but history in general. This book is fascinating, and is one of my all time favorites.Book Review: As good as it gets...
Summary: 5 Stars
Most times, I would much prefer to read a work of nonfiction as opposed to historical fiction. But after reading dozens of books about the Battle of Gettysburg, it was refreshing to read Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning Killer Angels. This fictional account gives us a viewpoint not to be found in nonfiction works.
What makes Killer Angels different is that each chapter is written through the eyes of the various leaders from both the Union and the Confederacy including Buford, Longstreet, Lee, Chamberlain, Armistead, as well as an English observer, Fremantle. Shaara used diaries, journals, letters and memoirs to recreate not only what was happening on the battlefield, but also, what these men were thinking, seeing and feeling. It's as if you're an eyewitness to history. Killer Angels does not attempt to cover every minute of the Battle of Gettysburg. In fact, Shaara focuses on four main aspects: Buford's establishing Union lines on good ground before the battle, Longstreet's ambivalence about fighting at Gettysburg, Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine defending Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge.
I found myself especially haunted by James Longstreet. Once a carefree, amiable man, he's still reeling from the recent deaths of 3 of his 4 children in one week. Robert E. Lee's number two man, he knows that a frontal attack (Pickett's charge) will be disastrous. He is tortured that Lee won't listen to his advice, and inconsolable after so many men are killed. "Along with all the horror of loss, and the weariness, and all the sick helpless rage, there was coming now a monstrous disgust. He was through. They had all died for nothing and he sent them...The army would not recover from this day."
I also gained an appreciation for Joshua Chamberlain. Chamberlain was not a trained soldier, but a college professor. But he was definitely a born leader. He started the Civil War as a lieutenant colonel and finished as a brigadier general. His heroics in leading his men on Little Round Top is a thing of legend, probably saved the Union and earned him a Medal of Honor.
I have found that once Gettysburg has gotten under your skin, you'll never tire of reading about this important battle that changed the course of the war. For fictional accounts, Killer Angels is about as good as it gets.
Book Review: Beautifully written and a joy to read
Summary: 5 Stars
One of two books read in my entire lifetime that I consider a masterpiece.
This book's language is sweet, smooth-flowing, stunning in its simplicity and focus. The Battle of Gettysburg is well documented and has been written about since July 4, 1863..... but to someone unversed in warfare and battlefields, it brought home the bravery, certainty and uncertainty, fear, foolishness, conflicts, nobility, and humanity of the men struggling to survive the 3 days in Pennsylvania that turned the tide of the war.
I loved the structure of the novel - alternating chapters among the key figures of the war - Lee, Chamberlain, Longstreet, Buford, Armistead, The Spy, Freemantle. I appreciated the maps, the brief biographical notes at the beginning of the novel and the afterward describing the principal characters lives after the war.
I want to learn more about Longstreet and Chamberlain particularly and want to see Gettysburg.
I'm not sure I could have appreciated this book at any earlier time in my life so am grateful that I've read it now.
Book Review: Best Book I have Raad This Year?
Summary: 5 Stars
If not the best it is certainly up there as one of the best books I have read this year (2008). It's been around for thirty years. It won the Pulitzer Prize - and yet I had not heard of it until it came up on the reading list of our Book Club. Thank goodness it did.
I'm sure most of us have been to Gettysburg, that nearly all of us can recite parts of the Gettysburg address from memory and that nearly all of us appreciate the historical significance of the battle; but this book put it all together for me; and it was emotional too. Written as a novel - and generally from the point of view of the Army of Northern Virginia - I was made to understand what the men on both sides went through as the battle developed, what their leaders were really like and the awful tragedy of the loss of life in this carnage of fellow Americans lined on different sides of Cemetery Ridge - actually lined on either side of what was a political and social divide - whether the Union could hold together and whether slavery could continue to exist.
Having visited Gettysburg twice and having been subjected to the lectures there each time it took this book to introduce me to the essence of the men who were there and what really happened. It's all too hard to summarize but I'm humbled by their fortitude and the patriotism of their officers. And I'm glad I read the book
Book Review: Brilliant historical fiction
Summary: 4 Stars
Probably the best book about war I have ever read. The focus on just a few main characters makes the story of the Battle of Gettysburg clear and easy to follow for the casual reader, but the level of detail about those characters should satisfy the history buff as well.