Truly good writing is not about people -- heroes and villains, victims and victimizers, strong men and weak -- but about the ideas that make them somewhat more than human.
Michael Sharra's "Killer Angels" is not exclusively about the Civil War, but about the influence of belief systems in giving superhuman strength to the weakness of human flesh, and such is the nature of the literature of ideas.
Humanity is an animal made most remarkable by its ability to communicate. It is language ability which elevates us, and it is the ability of language itself to rise above its origins by making it possible to describe ideas and concepts which have no clear analogues in the physical world. This is world which is accessed in this remarkable realm of letters.
>>Michael Sharra's "Killer Angels" is not exclusively about the Civil War,
That's a great book. Might need to dig that out of my bookcase and re-read it.
Interesting point, Bob. "Killer Angels" was very good. Jeff Shaara's books are not as good.
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