Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Ryan Cole, author of Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero:

This Hallowed Ground: A History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton.The Chicago Sun-Times called this popular chronicle by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Catton, who died in 1978, “a classic work…The best single-volume treatment of the Civil War…a book to own and remember.”

Patriotic Picks is a monthly feature in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.