“The most brilliant passage I read this year was about beards. Specifically, about the beards that American men wore before the Civil War—John Brown beards, Old Testament beards, perhaps the greatest flourishing of facial hair in world history. In 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Adam Goodheart explains how these beards embodied—embarbered?—the political divisions that would ignite the Civil War, how in both South and North, facial hair signaled the ruthless nationalism and uncompromising idealism that led to war. 1861 is a perfect book of popular history: It sketches vivid characters and recounts astonishing adventures—you won’t believe the story of the Union general who accidentally ended slavery—and it flashes with unexpected and brilliant insights about everything from Abraham Lincoln to beards (to Abraham Lincoln’s beard).”
