ISBN
9780820363530
Publication Date
2023
Price
$44.95
Publisher
University of Georgia Press
Abstract
Scott Hippensteel’s Sand, Science, and the Civil War fills
a critical gap in several different literatures on America’s Civil War. Across 20 brief chapters, Hippensteel demonstrates how sedimentary geology affected military operations on a range of scales, from the continental creation of mountains that acted as offensive obstacles to the weathering of sand into an effective force multiplier for coastal fortifications. Hippensteel is not a historian by training—he is an associate professor of earth sciences—and perhaps for that reason, Sand, Science, and the Civil War does not follow the expected structure or chronology of a typical history monograph. Nevertheless, Hippensteel’s work is an excellent primer on geologic processes salient to the study of warfare, the evolution of the military geosciences during the Civil War, and the intersection of geology with Civil War-era artillery, fortifications, mobility, and even morale.
DOI
10.31390/cwbr.26.1.06
Recommended Citation
Mauldin, Erin Stewart
(2024)
"Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat,"
Civil War Book Review: Vol. 26
:
Iss.
1
.
DOI: 10.31390/cwbr.26.1.06
Available at:
https://repository.lsu.edu/cwbr/vol26/iss1/6
