And by good I mean:
That it's a good read, not too complex, more like an interesting history lesson with the important battles, the players, in chronological order. Including backgrounds too of course, but it should start at zero, and not expect much existing knowledge of names, places or the initial situations. Nice old pictures are always a plus, too.
Anyone got a good idea? 
Based on what the reviews say, there are apparently a lot of nice pictures in this book, and it's very well written and easy to read. It goes along with a famous documentary about the Civil War that aired on PBS in the early 90s, but you don't need to have seen that to read the book. I guess if you're really serious about the topic, you might want to check that out too ... Ken Burn's The Civil War. It's around 10 hours long.
The book:
http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-bestselling-War--based-celebrated/dp/0679755438/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283088852&sr=1-4
I don't know if it counts as starting from zero though ... to be honest, I kind of doubt if you'll be able to find an American book that's not for children that doesn't assume at least some prior knowledge of the topic. It gets covered kind of heavily in schools, as you can imagine ...
I dunno, you might have more luck with a German or an English book? That's all I got. Hope its helpful. 
Insert theme music here.
Can someone recommend me a good book about the American Civil War?
- 29/08/2010 01:41:11 PM
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I'm assuming you're looking for non-fiction?
- 29/08/2010 03:33:45 PM
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Killer Angels was good even if technically it is fiction
- 30/08/2010 06:09:46 PM
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It was excellent, and the basis for the film "Gettysburg" The author's son wrote a prequel & sequel
- 31/08/2010 05:28:37 AM
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