Stephen Ambrose, a popular contributor to our sister publication, American Heritage, was part of a great line of American historians that includes Bruce Catton and Francis Parkman.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

Indeed, for readers whose Civil War bibliography runs to standard works by Bruce Catton and James McPherson with an audio-visual assist from Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" Mr. Levine's book offers fresh insights into the complex reality of what most Northerners thought of as the solid South and the slow evolution of the Union crusade against slavery.

WSJ: Book Review: The Fall of the House of Dixie