"Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us. The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement in European wars, beginning with the First World War, did what it did. But the Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the mid-nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads."
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Novelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesHistorical novelistsHistorians from the United StatesJournalists from Mississippi
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Shelby Foote
Shelby Dade Foote, Jr. (17 November 1916 – 27 June 2005) was an author and historian of the American Civil War. A native of Greenville, Mississippi, Foote left college early to enlist in the US Army in 1940. After the war he worked as a journalist, and wrote historical fiction, before becoming a historian specialising in the Civil War period. He wrote a 3000 page three volume history, and became well known to the public from his appearance in Ken Burns' documentary series The Civil War (1990).
14 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Shelby Foote →
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