Recommendations from our site
“The Killer Angels is perfect in that Michael Shaara takes Gettysburg, the pivotal battle of the American Civil War, if not in modern American military history, and brings it to life. You can tell he’s done the research because of the way he talks about the units on the move and the planning. The fighting itself at Gettysburg is very, very accurate. The man’s done his homework, but he’s just got that fictional writer’s skill. He just brings to life the drama of the human experience. You can understand why countless Hollywood producers and directors have read The Killer Angels.” Read more...
Iain MacGregor, Military Historians & Veteran
“The Killer Angels has had a tremendous influence over Civil War literature and cinema of the last several decades. Not only has this novel about the Battle of Gettysburg inspired feature films backed by studio money and starring Hollywood actors, but the book also won the adoration of acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Burns cited his experience reading the novel in 1984 as the episode that made him resolve to make his landmark 1990 PBS documentary The Civil War. Not surprisingly, many fictions published in the years after The Killer Angels employ its multi-narrator approach, with chapters swinging back and forth between personalities North and South. Scholarship has also been shaped by the novel, as Shaara’s focus on certain historical figures led to a renewal of scholarly interest in those persons – most importantly, Union officer Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.” Read more...
Classic Novels of the American Civil War
Craig A. Warren, Literary Scholar
