The most striking thing about Shelby Foote’s Civil War trilogy is how southern it is. He was from the South, so that’s no big surprise, but I doubt that in our day and age he would win much acclaim–if the New York Times were reviewing his book afresh this Sunday, he would be portrayed as a crank. His books not only end with Jefferson Davis, as Peter notes, but they also start with Jefferson Davis, as if he were the central figure in the drama. No mainstream history of the war will ever be written this way again.