Cantitate/Preț
Produs

The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege

Autor Mark M. Smith
en Limba Engleză Paperback
Historical accounts of major events have almost always relied upon what those who were there witnessed. Nowhere is this truer than in the nerve-shattering chaos of warfare, where sight seems to confer objective truth and acts as the basis of reconstruction. In The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege, historian Mark M. Smith considers how all five senses, including sight, shaped the experience of the Civil War and thus its memory, exploring its full sensory impact on everyone from the soldiers on the field to the civilians waiting at home.

From the eardrum-shattering barrage of shells announcing the outbreak of war at Fort Sumter; to the stench produced by the corpses lying in the mid-summer sun at Gettysburg; to the siege of Vicksburg, once a center of Southern culinary aesthetics and starved into submission, Smith recreates how Civil War was felt and lived. Relying on first-hand accounts, Smith focuses on specific senses, one for each event, offering a wholly new perspective. At Bull Run, the similarities between the colors of the Union and Confederate uniforms created concern over what later would be called friendly fire and helped decide the outcome of the first major battle, simply because no one was quite sure they could believe their eyes. He evokes what it might have felt like to be in the HL Hunley submarine, in which eight men worked cheek by jowl in near-total darkness in a space 48 inches high, 42 inches wide. Often argued to be the first total war, the Civil War overwhelmed the senses because of its unprecedented nature and scope, rendering sight less reliable and, Smith shows, forcefully engaging the nonvisual senses. Sherman's March was little less than a full-blown assault on Southern sense and sensibility, leaving nothing untouched and no one unaffected.

Unique, compelling, and fascinating, The Smell of Battle, The Taste of Siege, offers readers way to experience the Civil War with fresh eyes.

Citește tot Restrânge

Toate formatele și edițiile

Toate formatele și edițiile Preț Express
Paperback (1) 10431 lei  22-36 zile
  Oxford University Press – 10431 lei  22-36 zile
Hardback (1) 36186 lei  31-37 zile
  Oxford University Press – 13 noi 2014 36186 lei  31-37 zile

Preț: 10431 lei

Nou

Puncte Express: 156

Preț estimativ în valută:
1996 2080$ 1660£

Carte disponibilă

Livrare economică 20 ianuarie-03 februarie 25

Preluare comenzi: 021 569.72.76

Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780190658526
ISBN-10: 0190658525
Pagini: 216
Greutate: 0.25 kg
Editura: Oxford University Press

Notă biografică


Mark M. Smith is Carolina Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and author or editor of a dozen books, including Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History and How Race Is Made: Slavery, the Senses, and Segregation.

Descriere

Descriere de la o altă ediție sau format:
Historical accounts of major events have almost always relied upon what those who were there witnessed. Nowhere is this truer than in the nerve-shattering chaos of warfare, where sight seems to confer objective truth and acts as the basis of reconstruction. In The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege, historian Mark M. Smith considers how all five senses, including sight, shaped the experience of the Civil War and thus its memory, exploring its full sensory impact on everyone from the soldiers on the field to the civilians waiting at home. From the eardrum-shattering barrage of shells announcing the outbreak of war at Fort Sumter; to the stench produced by the corpses lying in the mid-summer sun at Gettysburg; to the siege of Vicksburg, once a center of Southern culinary aesthetics and starved into submission, Smith recreates how Civil War was felt and lived. Relying on first-hand accounts, Smith focuses on specific senses, one for each event, offering a wholly new perspective. At Bull Run, the similarities between the colors of the Union and Confederate uniforms created concern over what later would be called "friendly fire" and helped decide the outcome of the first major battle, simply because no one was quite sure they could believe their eyes. He evokes what it might have felt like to be in the HL Hunley submarine, in which eight men worked cheek by jowl in near-total darkness in a space 48 inches high, 42 inches wide. Often argued to be the first "total war," the Civil War overwhelmed the senses because of its unprecedented nature and scope, rendering sight less reliable and, Smith shows, forcefully engaging the nonvisual senses. Sherman's March was little less than a full-blown assault on Southern sense and sensibility, leaving nothing untouched an no one unaffected. Unique, compelling, and fascinating, The Smell of Battle, The Taste of Siege, offers readers way to experience the Civil War with fresh eyes.

Recenzii

Smiths choice of episodes is inspiring. Perhaps not evident from the last two chapters titles, themes are introduced with playful language, his enjoyment in writing this volume evident throughout ... I would be surprised if this book does not change historical accounts of warfare. The twentieth century brought total war to greater numbers of civilians of many other nations, but historians have yet to write the sort of total history, which adequately conveys the full meaning of such collective trauma. Yet again, Smith has provided us with a model.
Read this book for an original methodology that encourages readers to consider the influence of the confusions of battle, the noise of shells, and the stench of death. Smith describes some of the key encounters of the civil war, including the Battle of Bull Run and Gettysburg, in terms of assaults on the senses and shows how that affected outcomes.
Historians often ask readers to imagine the intense sights, sounds, and smells of battle. Smith goes one step further and explores how such sensory assaults affect the conduct of war itself.