How Lincoln Won: The 1860 Presidential Election and the Origins of the Civil War.  By Darin DeWitt and Thomas Schwartz.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2026.  Hardcover, 278 pp. $45.00. Reviewed by Robin Friedman In 1858, Republican Abraham Lincoln challenged the Democratic incumbent Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois. The […]

Nâzım Hikmet, photographed by Hans-Joachim Koch at the IV German Writers’ Congress, January 1956, in East Berlin / Wikipedia They take the pages and burn the ink,But the words—oh, the words—Are fire in our hearts,Grains of dust in the wind.

The first book ends by asking the wind to speak. The second book begins with a snake’s shed skin.   Between the books the ocea...

  A Desperate Fight: The Lives of Louisiana’s Confederate Soldiers. By Henry B. Motty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 272 pp. $49.95. Reviewed by Sean Michael Chick Of all the Confederate states, Louisiana produced the most diverse units and, debatably, the most colorful ones. This has led to numerous unit studies, with […]

The 1st Louisiana Native Guard was the first officially sanctioned all-Black regiment in the U.S. Army.

Dan Albergotti’s Candy is a book steeped in sound and silence. Sound in the form of song, of chaotic cacophony, and of the drone (sometimes natural, someti...

arrowheads of swallows slicing a wind                 strong enough to set their wings on fire, but not the weather so much as the place itself,

arrowheads of swallows slicing a wind                 strong enough to set their wings on fire, but not the weather so much as the place itself,

  Lee’s Army During the Overland Campaign: A Numerical Study. By Alfred C. Young. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013. Paperback, 428 pp. $39.95. Reviewed by Bert Dunkerly Although it has been out (in hardback) for thirteen years, this is a great reference book that I pull off the shelf from time to time […]

What happens when you ask contemporary poets to look into the cracked mirror of David Lynch’s work? Fix Your Hearts or Die! is an exuberant, eccentric coll...

Henry Eustace McCulloch: Texas Ranger, Legislator, Civil War General. By David Paul Smith. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 312 pp. $49.95. Reviewed by Jonathan Steplyk Students of the Civil War may recognize Benjamin McCulloch, the famed Texas Ranger who, as a Confederate general, was killed at the battle of Pea Ridge. Less […]

Marielle Songy is a freelance journalist and writer. This interview is based on her new book, Coffee Culture New Orleans (LSU Press, 2026). JF: What led you to write Coffee Culture New Orleans? MS:…

Tip of the Tongue · Episode

“The Devil’s Own Purgatory” by Robert Gudmestad is the winner of the 2026 Emerging Civil War Book Award. ECW’s Chris Mackowski chats with Gudmestad about this groundbreaking new look at the Mississippi River Squadron during the Civil War. This episode of the Emerging Civil War Podcast is brought to you by Civil War Trails, the […]