The Civil War book series chronicles in great detail the American Civil War. Published by Time Life Books, the series was simultaneously released in the US and Canada between 1983 and 1987, with subsequent identical reprints in the late 1980s - early 1990s following suit for foreign, though untranslated, dissemination as well. Some titles focused on a specific topic, such as the blockade, and spies, but most volumes concentrated on the battles and campaigns, presented in chronological order.
Each volume in the series was 176 pages in length, heavily illustrated and with pictorial essays on specific topics within each volume and came standard without a dust jacket. Executed in hardcover, each volume was bound in silvery-gray padded faux leather, the cover endowed with in deep blue printed text imprints, and heavily embossed with Civil War symbology with an oval shaped illustration glued on.
There are 28 volumes in the series:
| Title | Consultants/Authors | Volume | Year published | ISBN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brother Against Brother - The War Begins | 01 | 1983 | |||
| First Blood - Fort Sumter to Bull Run | William C. Davis | 02 | 1983 | ||
| The Blockade - Runners and Raiders | John R. Elting, James J. Robertson, William A. Frassatino, Les Jenson, Michael McAffee, Clark G. Reynolds, James P. Shenton | 03 | 1983 | ||
| The Road to Shiloh - Early Battles in the West | David Nevin | 04 | 1983 | ||
| Forward to Richmond - McClellan's Peninsular Campaign | Ronald H. Bailey | 05 | 1983 | ||
| Decoying the Yanks - Jackson's Valley Campaign | Champ Clark | 06 | 1984 | ||
| Confederate Ordeal - The Southern Home Front | Steve A. Channing | 07 | 1984 | ||
| Lee Takes Command - From Seven Days to Second Bull Run | John R. Elting, William A. Frassatino, Les Jenson, Michael McAffee, James P. Shenton | 08 | 1984 | ||
| The Coastal War - Chesapeake Bay to Rio Grande | Peter M. Chaitin | 09 | 1984 | ||
| Tenting Tonight - The Soldier's Life | James I. Robertson, Jr. | 10 | 1984 | ||
| The Bloodiest Day - The Battle of Antietam | Ronald H. Bailey | 11 | 1984 | ||
| War on the Mississippi - Grant's Vicksburg Campaign | 12 | 1985 | |||
| Rebels Resurgent - Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville | William K. Goolrick | 13 | 1985 | ||
| Twenty Million Yankees - The Northern Home Front | Donald Dale Jackson | 14 | 1985 | ||
| Gettysburg - The Confederate High Tide | Champ Clark | 15 | 1985 | ||
| The Struggle for Tennessee - Tupelo to Stones River | James Street, Jr. | 16 | 1985 | ||
| The Fight For Chattanooga - Chickamauga to Missionary Ridge | 17 | 1985 | |||
| Spies, Scouts and Raiders - Irregular Operations | John R. Elting, William A. Frassatino, Les Jenson, Michael McAffee | 18 | 1985 | ||
| Battles For Atlanta - Sherman Moves East | Ronald H. Bailey | 19 | 1985 | ||
| The Killing Ground - Wilderness to Cold Harbor | Gregory Jaynes | 20 | 1986 | ||
| Sherman's March - Atlanta to the Sea | David Nevin | 21 | 1986 | ||
| Death in the Trenches - Grant at Petersburg | William C. Davis | 22 | 1986 | ||
| War on the Frontier - The Trans-Mississippi West | Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. | 23 | 1986 | ||
| The Shenandoah in Flames - The Valley Campaign of 1864 | Thomas A. Lewis | 24 | 1987 | ||
| Pursuit to Appomattox - The Last Battles | 25 | 1987 | |||
| The Assassination - Death of the President | Champ Clark | 26 | 1987 | ||
| The Nation Reunited - War's Aftermath | 27 | 1987 | |||
| Master Index - An Illustrated Guide | Editors of Time Life Books | 28 | 1987 |
These slipcases are relatively rare.
A 432-page excerpt hardcover variant edition, its chapter organization roughly following the series title order as released, was concurrently published in 1990 by educational publisher Prentice Hall as "Brother against brother, Time-Life Books History of the Civil War", as well as by Time-Life itself in a dust jacket for the general populace under the same title, which was subsequently reprinted as "The Time-Life History of the Civil War" by Barnes & Noble Books in 1995, featuring a newly designed dust jacket. Renowned Civil War historian James M. McPherson (who had not contributed to the main series) provided the foreword for the excerpt edition.
A well-received series at the time, it has enticed Time-Life to delve much deeper into the subject of the American Civil War with follow-up releases as companion series, becoming arguably Time-Life's most revisited topic in the process. These included, Collector's Library of the Civil War (1981-1985, 28 volumes - reprinted by Easton Press in 1998 with two additional titles -, deluxe reproductions of memoirs written by Civil War participants,, actually already started before the main series and therefore conceivably the de facto source publication), Echoes of Glory (1991, 3 volume box set, two volumes detailing the arms and equipment of both respective armies, the third one being an historical atlas of the war, re-using the maps the publisher had originally commissioned for the main series, - reprinted several times in the 1990s in varying executions, including a 1999 boxed softcover edition,), and Voices of the Civil War (1996-1998, 18 illustrated volumes, reproductions of letters from Civil War participants, written at the time of the key battles around which the series was organized). Aside from these, Time-Life (re)issued The Civil War: A Narrative - 40th Anniversary Edition in 1999-2000, an illustrated commemorative version of Shelby Foote's magus opus (14 volumes - the original three-volume work was, save for a few maps, not illustrated). Additionally, two stand-alone titles were released as a, summarizing, general history of the war, and, like Voices and A Narrative, again making use of the considerable pictorial archive the publisher had accumulated for the main series, including their own commissioned maps. The first one concerned "War between Brothers", released in 1996 as part of the six-volume mini-series The American Story, that dealt with selected highlights of US history, and which was followed in 2000 by "An Illustrated History of the Civil War", a truly stand-alone title as that title was not a part of a series.
Nor have the "War between Brothers" and "Illustrated History" remained the only stand-alone Civil War titles by Time-Life; despite the fact that the publisher had largely withdrawn from book publication in 2003, subsequent iterations of the company did release additional Civil War book titles - aside from re-issuing the Illustrated History title in 2011 -, mostly on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the war, being in essence largely rehashings of the considerable editorial effort they had undertaken for the main series thirty years earlier. Titles thus released included,
In the early 2000s, three volumes of the main series were reissued in brown faux leatherette as otherwise unaltered installments by The History Channel Club for their American History Archives deluxe book series collection (which dealt with the overall history of the USA) and concerned "A Nation Divided: The Civil War Begins" (2003,, = volume 01), "Gettysburg: The Tide of War Turns" (2003,, = volume 15), and "Antietam, The Bloodiest Day" (2004,, = volume 11), the two 2003 releases even featuring the same cover illustrations. These hardback versions are relatively rare on the used-book markets and the "Antietam" title in particular commands a higher after-market price than its Time Life progenitor does. The other collection volumes dealing with the Civil War do not have a Time Life Books pedigree, but were drawn from the plethora of Osprey Publishing releases.
Apart from the book titles, Time-Life has, as the first to do so with many others to follow, released the PBS multi-award-winning 1989-1990 documentary series The Civil War by documentary maker Ken Burns (who in turn was inspired by Shelby Foote's work) in 1990 as a 9-tape VHS box set under its own "Time Life Video" imprint.[1] Voices of the Civil War was also released as a taped audio book series by Time-Life (for which the publisher had commissioned Hachette Audio), shortly after the release of the book versions.[2] In 1991 the company also released "The Civil War Music: Collector's Edition" three-piece box set, a rendition of contemporary tunes played at the times, in both music cassette and CD formats . The accompanying 24-page booklet featured information lifted from the main series, predominantly from the volume Tenting Tonight.
An ancient, precursory publication on the topic had been the centennial 1961 six-part The Civil War article series for Life Magazine, commemorating the centennial anniversary, from which the book "Great Battles of the Civil War" was derived in the same year. This ancient release was in 1963 followed by two equally ancient plain hardcover volumes from the early The LIFE History of the United States series, volumes 5 ("The Union Sundered, 1849-1865",) and 6 ("The Union Restored, 1861-1876",), in both cases endowed with a revised 1974 deluxe faux burgundy red leatherette in dust jacket reprint edition (respectively) and authored by American historian T. Harry Williams.
As had become standard practice for Time Life Books by the late 1970s and 1980s, the series was vigorously supported by a television ad campaign in the form of a series of commercials transmitted either in first-run syndication or during late-night television programming. The Civil War book series commercials were broadcast on television in the latter half of the 1980s.[3]
The television ad campaigns were complementary to Time Life's standard operating procedure of sending out elaborate multi-sheet mailings to their already existing customer base, in which a series was introduced in detail to a potential subscriber; having taken out a subscription once, a customer was then registered in Time Life Books' customer database, at the time a crucial business model marketing tool for the company, making that customer eligible for receiving the company's mailings henceforth.[4]