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EPISODE 2.14 -
December 16, 2005
Who is Joe Holt and why is he saying these things
Guest: Elizabeth Leonard
Dr. Elizabeth Leonard, author of Lincoln's Avengers and All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies, covers topics from the Lincoln assassination to the participation of women soldiers
Blake's Review:
Another poor interview. Look, I don't mind discussing Women in the Civil War. But this interview was all over the place and failed to really dig deep into anything. The interview began with Gerry asking the supposedly rhetorical question, "why should a Civil War reader/historian care to read about women's roles in the Civil War?" The obvious point being that war is fought by men and in the 19th Century this was especially true. The guest basically answered with saying something along the lines of half of the people in America were women and if you ignore them you can't really get the whole picture of the Civil War. Okay. Half the pets in the world are cats. I find reading about dogs far more interesting because I prefer dogs. If you argue I should read about cats more because I am failing to understand the true story of pets in America then my response would be, "so what?" I kind of felt like that here. They do discuss the pitfalls of historians going too deeply down the rabbit hole of studying smaller and smaller interest groups and whether or not turning away from the traditional historical political and war-based history is a good or bad thing for history. If people who claim to write about the Civil War can't tell you who led the Army of Tennessee but can tell you how many slaves existed in Kentucky in 1863, then that's probably a problem. They agree there should be a middle ground for historians and I concur. Teaching people to be well-rounded in their approach to the war is a good thing. But, as for this interview, sorry, I just didn't get hooked in and turned it off about halfway through.
_________________ Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012
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