This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

This is very dry and academic book. It reads more like a prolonged history essay paper than a novel and tends to become repetitive as Faust quotes source after source after source. There is some good information in here about the founding of the national cemetery system, the evolving ideas around heaven, authors and poets of the time, and conceptions of death in mid 19th century America. There is not a lot of background detail given around the context of the Civil War or battles so this book should be regarded as a supplement for any understanding how the war affected the nation's populace.