The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000 Page: 128

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

a historian). One could also place this work in the more recent genre of books
on current-day immigration, which would include Peter Skerry's Mexican
Americans: The Ambivalent Minority (Free Press, 1993). If the reader is looking for
a book that lays out the anti-immigration viewpoint for the 199os, this is proba-
bly the book to read, but if the reader wants a book on the history of anti-immi-
gration rhetoric in the twentieth century or a book that documents both sides of
the argument equally, then I cannot recommend Reimers's book.
University of Kansas VALERIE M. MENDOZA
Lee and His Generals in War and Memory. By Gary W. Gallagher. (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1998. Pp. xvi+298. Illustrations, preface,
credits, index. ISBN o-8071-2286-6. $27.95, cloth.)
An explanation of an essay delivered in 1991 and subsequently published in a
collection edited by Gabor S. Boritt the following year, this book is something of
a melange. The work is divided into four parts, but the first two, "Lee" and
"Lee's Generals," take well over two-thirds of the space. The former is one more
effort, in a growing number of current works, to reexamine Lee's generalship,
while the latter does the same for a number of his commanders. The material is
interesting and, as one might expect from Professor Gallagher, well written.
While it offers little that is altogether new to the historian, it is thoughtful and
deserves attention in that it reflects the musings of a close student of the
Confederacy at war.
The last two parts, "Fighting for Historical Memory" and "Distant
Reverberations," are a bit more in keeping with and something of a namesake to
Paul Fussell's The Great War in Modern Memory. In "Fighting for Historical
Memory," the first essay describes Jubal Early's untiring efforts following the war
to preserve his commander's image as well as his ultimate success in turning
Robert E. Lee into an American, and perhaps an international, icon. The next
essay reports on La Salle Corbell Pickett's attempt to recast her husband's per-
sona through her questionable and rather clumsy editing of his letters.
"Reverberations" contains a balanced criticism of Ken Burns's enormously suc-
cessful television series, "The Civil War," wherein Gallagher attempts to recon-
cile the production's massive and euphemistic influence on the public percep-
tion of the war with the strong and often adverse criticism that emanated from
both academic and amateur historians. Finally, Gallagher looks at the role of
both battlefield preservation and flags as symbols of the war's legacy.
In sum, although the book has disparate segments, it is fascinating, informa-
tive, thoughtful, and usually convincing. Its easy style should appeal to many
interested in America's great nineteenth-century war. It is sure to be read by a
wide-ranging, appreciative audience.

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July

Southwest Texas State University

JAMES W. POHL