Rating: 
Summary: Insightful
Review: The author raises some very good questions and points. His focus does drift away from Gburg from time to time and covers more of the myths of the overall war.
The book is actually somewhat heart breaking for us students of the ACW because you walk away realizing that many of the accounts of the war you may have read are not necessarily entirely factual. Again, the point of the book is to explore the myths and in doing so the author asks many questions. Unfortunately there are not many answers, although many of the key points are put to rest (i.e. Gburg for shoes, "Historicus", etc.)
There was something missing from the book that doesn't allow me to give it a better rating, and I'm not quite sure what it is. It is a little scatter brained and redundant at certain points. Another pass from an editor would have helped. There is also a somewhat half-assed attempted to psycho analyze some of the motivation behind the embellishments/straight out lying, etc. that was a bit elementary, and quite frankly presumptuous. But most of all, I think the book needs to be re-organized. There should have been a "top ten" of sorts, myth #1 Shoes, myth #2 Ewell controversy, myth #3 Longstreet controversy, myth #4 Sicles controversy, etc. I have the feeling that the book was on the short side, and things were added and restated to beef it up. The writing almost would have worked better as a series of articles in a ACW or history mag.
That being said, it is very insightful and for that it gets my 3/maybe 3.5 star rating. Not for the novice, I think you are better reading a treatment of the battle, at least to help you understand why men would lie/exaggerate their reports. The biggest surprise of course is the heroic stand of the 20th Maine which gets toned down to realistic proportions and brings Chamberlin back to earth.
In short, good reading overall, but could use the touch of a better editor, and less preaching.
Rating: 
Summary: A history of the history of Gettysburg
Review: This is actually a pretty unique book on Gettysburg in that it's not a study of the battle itself but of the history of the battle and how people's perceptions of Gettysburg have been shaped over time. Tom Desjardin does a wonderful job of looking at some of the more famous parts of the battle such as Little Round Top and The High Water Mark and explaining why and how they became focal points. Many myths are explored and how they came into being such as the myth that the Confederates were a ragged shoeless army (They were actually well equipped). Sickles' endless campaign after the battle to smear Meade's reputation also gets a close look as well as the evolution of the 20th Maine's role in the battle thanks to the book Killer Angels and the film Gettysburg. The book also has some interesting info about the monuments on the field. We learn why the Armistead marker is in the wrong place, why the statue on the statue on the 83rd Pennsylvania monument looks so much like Stong Vincent and why there is no statue to Sickles on the Battlefield (Sickles embezzled the money!). Lastly Tom Desjardin is just a plain good writer. To many books on history these days are written by people who while they do good research don't have great writing skills. Desjardin however is as good a writer as he is a scholor and the result is a very pleasant read.
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