The author's readable style helps a lot. Also, interesting background material and history begin each chapter, and some industrial processes--glass-making, for example--are explained more fully. You won't regret reading this book, but you may be inclined to sell it when you're through.

This book is a must have for every body who is in the architecture field...it's worth every penny..

Simply put, this is one of the best technical textbooks I've ever read. It's basic stuff for someone just starting out in the discipline of architecture, but I'm keeping it as a reference for future professional use. It is clearly written and well illustrated and worth it's high price. I wish Allen would now write a book on Environmental Control Systems--everything in that field is too dry and too technical.

I've had the pleasure of knowing Dr. Harsh for several years after taking a class on the Civil War with him at George Mason University.

This book came out of the seperation into three books of a manuscript he wrote on Gen. Lee and the campaign just prior to the Maryland campaign and then the Maryland campaign itself. This book is immensely readable and quite detailed. Dr. Harsh is quite blunt when there is a lack of clear evidence on a subject and the reasons for his judgment are well reasoned and sound. My opinion of Confederate strategy and the role of Jefferson Davis in the formation of that strategy changed a great deal after reading Confederate Tide Rising. While he is not the subject of this book, my view of Gen. Jackson also changed as the result of reading this book. Due to his performance in many of the battles and lead up to the battles discussed in this book, it's obvious to me that Jackson has been overrated by historians and could have been much more criticized by Gen. Lee than he was. That he did not do so postwar and only midly criticized Jackson in the action discussed in this book says a lot about Gen. Lee the man.

There are only a few drawbacks to this book. The first is that Dr. Harsh sometimes I think assumes knowledge of minor engagements and also political developments which were important but not directly germaine to his discussion that the reader may not possess. He would have been better served to not just mention these engagements and political developments and leave the reader wondering but to further discuss these developments and their importance, such as the Trent affair which he mentions twice before discussing what it was.
My second gripe with this book has been noted by a previous reviewer. There is a woeful lack of maps, which I think is simply unforgivable in any military history book. As Dr. Harsh clearly demonstrates, terrain and locations are particularly important in civil war battles and helped determine the tactics and strategy employed by Gen. Lee, Gen. McClellan and Gen. Pope. I have a working knowledge of some of the places discussed in the book because I live near many of them, however many readers in other parts of the country who do not have an extensive knowledge of the Civil War yet, may not. The lack of maps would really hamper their understanding of Dr. Harsh's points.

However, one thing that helps this book despite all that is Dr. Harsh's discussion of several terms and their uses in books on the the Civil War as well as how the Civil War generals themselves would have understood those terms such as strategy and tactics. This sort of a discussion is absent in most works on the war and I believe really hampers the understanding of many who look to gain knowledge on the war.

Overall, this book is essential for any Civil War bookshelf and should be accompanied by Dr. Harsh's other two books, Taken at the Flood and Sounding the Shallows.

An overview of the war to the summer of 62. The ideas presented are well grounded and provoke real thought. Not a book that will sit well with many readers but a worthwhile addition to any Civil War Library. Read this and than read "Taken at the Flood".

Joseph Harsh, the author, analyzes Confederate war strategy from Fort Sumter through the Battle of Second Manassas stating that it was not true that the all the South wanted was "to be left alone." Declaring independence did not guarantee independence, and the author states the South thus "pursued three closely related but distinct war aims: independence, territorial integrity and the union of all the slave states."

The text notes that statistically the South could not win. To overcome the odds, the Confederacy needed to conserve its resources while inflicting unacceptable casualties on the North. The text explains the doctrines of the Swiss military theorist Jomini, the probable basis for Jefferson Davis's doctrine of the "offensive-defense." Davis's doctrine provided a firm strategic framework within which Confederate generals in the field could work. By October 1861, pursuing the offensive-defense considerable progress toward achieving Confederate war aims was made; followed next by reversals of Southern fortunes resulting in part from the failure to continue the policies/strategies that yielded early successes.

On June 1, 1862 Robert E. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, when Joseph Johnson was wounded. The offensive-defensive policy was already in practice and was not initiated by Lee as some contend. By "late May 1862, the South had nearly lost the war. Lee knew that Jefferson Davis expected him to go on the offensive to save Richmond and to reclaim Virginia. Harsh also notes "Lee chose the offensive because he wanted to win the war, and he thought it offered the only chance. He believed the defensive was the sure path to defeat." His first response was the Seven Days Battle, whose strategy/execution contained errors, but nevertheless relieved the pressure on Richmond.

The author gives an excellent account of the strategic/tactical problems during the Seven Days Campaign and the events leading to the Battle of Second Manassas. Richmond was a major railroad center, banking center, manufacturing center, milling center and its lost would have been serious. It was important that the city is not captured and that Virginia is reclaimed. After the Seven Days Campaign Lee lost the initiative and was in a strategic stalemate that didn't end until Union General McClellan's Army of the Potomac was ordered back to Washington thereby ending the threat to Richmond.

The text gives an excellent account of the development of Lee's field strategies before and throughout the Battle of Second Manassas. The author notes as the battle neared its climax "Lee desperately wanted to finish the task at hand by destroying the army of.... Pope." However a frontal assault was the only option; and Lee couldn't afford the losses a frontal assault would incur. Nonetheless the author notes following the Second Manassas "Through chance, risk and much bloodshed, he and the Army of Northern Virginia were cobbling together the series of rapid victories that might lead to Northern demoralization and Confederate independence." The text ends with the Battle of Second Manassas and closes with six appendixes that discuss strategy questions.

While this an excellent work, my major criticism is an almost total lack of suitable maps. I read the chapters on the Battle of Second Manassas with a copy of Hennessy's book on Second Manassas at hand for its maps. While much can be gained from this book without prior study of the first eighteen months of the Civil War, prior reading of history about the period covered by this book will greatly aid the reader in comprehending Harsh's text.

I just finished reading "Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862"
by Joseph L. Harsh.

Ouch!!!! Talk about painful!!! Harsh (a history professor who grew up in Hagerstown) simply cannot write!! Some people can write well; others write poorly. Harsh is at the bottom of the latter group. (I feel sorry for his students -- they probably suffered severe ear and brain trauma from his lectures. And he writes as if he were lecturing!!)

He LOVES R.E. Lee. (According to Harsh, everything that went wrong was someone else's fault -- without exception!!) Then there are Harsh's numerous "moments" when he tells you what a particular person MUST have been thinking at any given time -- as if Harsh (or anyone else!!) could know! Finally come are his analyses of various events and situations. In Harsh's eyes, all ideas that contradict his opinions OBVIOUSLY MUST be wrong -- it's just plain "foolish" to think otherwise.

It's too bad that Harsh just didn't tell what happened and allowed us to form our own judgements. (By the way, he plays pretty "fast and loose" with the facts. Plus, he omits vital information that doesn't correspond to his interpretation.)
In his preface, Harsh even has the audacity to state that, besides his book, there are only one or two other books that cover the Maryland Campaign in depth. Well, I have been studying Antietam for over 35 years, have been there several hundred times, and have read literally thousands of books, articles, and documents about Antietam. Harsh is full of it!!

If you were thinking of buying this book, don't bother. You can gain just as much by pulling out all your teeth with a pair of pliars, then dropping a 200-pound lead weight on your foot.

I agree with much the prior reviewers have said. Although I am not a Civil War buff, I found the book readable. I appreciate his methodology also. Harsh attempts to reconstruct the intelligence available to Lee when he made crucial decisions and to assess his decisions based on the moves he could have made given what he knew and in light of his strategic aims for the campaign. All historians should stick by this method. He also does a very creditable job in his attempt to ascertain what Lee knew. On balance very well researched and well argued. I especially enjoyed the end in which he places his argument within the context of existing historiography on the subject. One criticism I have relates to the maps, which is discussed in the review of one of Dr. Harsh's other books. I bought Landscape Turned Red as the result of reading Taken at the Flood. And the maps are much more helpful in that Sears's book. When you are dealing with a lot of different place names and different corps moving around, it makes the flow a lot easier.

(Disclaimer: I sat in on a few classes of Dr. Harsh's as an undergraduate).

Much praise has been heaped on Dr. Harsh for this defining work on the Maryland Campaign of 1862. Awards have rolled in - perhaps the setup for the Pulitzer Prize for his planned upcoming works on the Union Side of the first two years of the American Civil War in the eastern theatre. Certainly, Harsh's approach of - what did they know, when did they know it, what did they do with information? - represents a step forward in understanding this critical campaign. Perhaps this method is taken a little too far, perhaps the author is too contrarian, eager to dispel existing notions and overturn previous judgements, but that's the fun of it - great academic arguments will result. Harsh's academic method - he is currently Professor of History at George Mason University, a school that he originally lobbied to be called "The University of Northern Virginia" (non-ACW fanatics didn't get it) - is unquestioned. A critical, thorough survey has been conducted of available original source material as well as established secondary sources. All told, it is an amazing story. This work is the result of decades of labor on this subject (Harsh is a native of Hagerstown, MD). One of the great points to be made here is that Lee was human after all, he made some significant mis-judgements. If you didn't know it from other exposures to Dr. Harsh you couldn't deduce from this work that Harsh consider Lee to be one of our countries finest soldiers. Even the best have their bad days - or campaigns, in this case. This is an absolutely first rate work on one of the most important (Harsh obviously believes the most important) campaigns of the ACW. Unfortunately, because of its academic format and size, it will not reach wide audiences. For those willing to make the effort, they will be richly rewarded.