John Buchanan (1) (1931–)

A very, very thoroughly researched and written book about the conflicts of the American Revolution in the southern colonies. A terrific repository of names, events, and conditions of the skirmishes and battles that took place in the Carolinas. One minor gripe, it can be difficult to read without having to go back a few paragraphs or even a page to keep track of all of the names and locations. But, after finishing this book, the reader will have a wealth of knowledge on the events in the south during the revolution.… (mere)

If you are looking for a book about Andrew Jackson, this book is not what you want to read. This is a highly annotated book about the people and events occurring around Jackson before he became president. It was extremely difficult to read, in fact, about a quarter of the way through I began simply scanning.
The author, John Buchanan; gives copious information about persons and events - details lives of individuals. I found myself going down rabbit holes of information about people who in the end were of no consequence in Jackson's life.… (mere)

Back in the day I read "The Road to Guilford Courthouse" with some enthusiasm but this further examination of the military career of General Nathaniel Greene I have to find problematic on a number of points. For one, I suspect that Buchanan would have been happier writing a more conventional "great man" type of history, but this was not a conventional war and I suspect that Buchanan realizes this and tries to engage with matters of race and atrocity with varying degrees of success. It also doesn't help that this work feels remarkably ponderous for being relatively short, and positively stuffed with personal anecdote, as Buchanan spends much of his word count giving you a blow by blow of Greene's command relationships; particularly the prickly and difficult Thomas Sumter. The thought that comes to mind is that Buchanan really needed to set himself a historical problem to answer, as this would have given this monograph more of a backbone than one damn thing after another. Also, rather than rehashing his previous work, perhaps Buchanan would have been better off considering how political and social conflict in the Carolinas prior to the revolution conditioned the two-way civil war that happened in the southern colonies. I suppose that's another way of saying that it turns out Nathaniel Greene was, perhaps, not the best focus by which to tell this story.… (mere)