The Book Shelf

Many of these items are available from Amazon.

Reviewed works, listed alphabetically:
Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997
Review by Henry Fardan
An elegaic history of one small part of the Civil War. Literature, not history, but good nonetheless.

The Film Shelf

Many of these items are available from Amazon. You can go directly to their ordering system, which shows pricing and availability and includes both professional and reader's reviews, by clicking on the image of the video cover or the film icon alongside each review.

Reviewed works, listed alphabetically:
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The
Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, The
Long Riders, The
Outlaw Josey Wales, The

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, a Sergio Leone film, 1967 (originally Buono, il brutto, il cattivo)
Review by Henry Fardan
Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach.
No more perfect type-casting in movie history. While it purports to be about the Civil War, it's really a Western in disguise. "A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery." Don't miss it when Wallach says "if you're going to talk, talk, if you're going to shoot, shoot..." Buy it here.

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid
Review by Henry Fardan
While The Long Riders is probably more brotherly, Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger is still one of the best. It's more about what happened as a result of the Civil War, but it shows what a bunch of Southern boys can do if they put their mind to it.
Buy it here.


The Long Riders, a Walter Hill film, 1980, United Artists
Review by Henry Fardan
The Carradines as the Younger brothers. The Keaches as the James brothers. The Quaids as the Miller brothers. The Guests as the Ford brothers. The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid all over again.
It don't get any better than this.
Buy it here.

The Outlaw Josey Wales, a Clint Eastwood film, 1976
Review by Henry Fardan
A Missouri farmer joins a Confederate guerilla unit and winds up on the run from the Union soldiers who murdered his family. Another Western masquerading as a Civil War film.