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My review of a good new bio of Sherman, perhaps our most interesting general

I reviewed a new bio of Sherman.

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Gen. William T. Sherman, ca. 1864-65.  Mathew Brady Collection. (Army)
Exact Date Shot Unknown
NARA FILE #:  111-B-1769
WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #:  125
Gen. William T. Sherman, ca. 1864-65. Mathew Brady Collection. (Army) Exact Date Shot Unknown NARA FILE #: 111-B-1769 WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 125
Gen. William T. Sherman, ca. 1864-65. Mathew Brady Collection. (Army) Exact Date Shot Unknown NARA FILE #: 111-B-1769 WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 125

 

 

I reviewed a new bio of Sherman for the Sunday New York Times Book Review. (That is, the edition of June 19.)

My review begins thusly: “Historians cannot get enough of William Tecumseh Sherman, and no wonder. As multiple biographies have noted over the last 30 years, he is a particularly modern figure — high-strung, quotable, irritable, irreligious, prone to bouts of anxiety and depression. One earlier Sherman biographer, the British military writer Basil Liddell Hart, called him ‘the first modern general.’”

Photo credit: Mathew Brady (1823–1896)/Wikimedia Commons

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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