Civil War

Hearts Touched by Fire The Best of "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War" Edited by Harold Holzer Modern Library: 1,264 pp., $38 The Civil War The First Year Told by Those Who Lived It Edited by Brooks D. Simpson, Stephen W. Sears and Aaron Sheehan-Dean Library of America: 814 pp., $37.50 The sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War is contested territory. A "secession ball" held last December in Charleston, S.C., and the Feb. 19 reenactment of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala., signal controversy, not consensus.

BEIRUT — Violence in Syria has continued amid a cease-fire, increasing concern that the country is descending into a civil war that could have frightening implications beyond its border, United Nations envoy Kofi Annan told the Security Council on Tuesday. The U.N.-backed peace plan, meant to end the bloodshed of a 14-month antigovernment uprising, remains the only chance to stabilize the country, Annan said. "If it fails … and it were to lead into a civil war, it will not affect only Syria, it will have an impact on the whole region," he said at a news conference in Geneva after his briefing.

A day after the collapse of a United Nations plan for Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that the situation on the ground could degenerate into "a brutal civil war. " The head of the Arab League, meanwhile, said Arab states would continue to work toward a peaceful resolution of the crisis. A Syrian opposition movement that had its hopes dashed in New York was attempting to regroup. There was general agreement on one point: The conflict in Syria could drag on for a long time.

In a short video produced by LA Louver in advance of Ben Jackel's solo show, one encounters the artist taking an ax, quite literally, to one of his sculptures. He's chipping away at a block of Douglas fir to form an enormous replica of the head of a pole-mounted weapon called a halberd, in a style traditionally carried by the personal guards of the elders of Saxony around the year 1600 - as he quickly clarifies when I mistakenly call it a spearhead. The piece, which, at 131/2 feet tall, would clearly do damage if it fell on you, is titled "Pay Attention.

A Civil War prison in Georgia -- briefly the largest prison camp of the conflict -- continues to provide archaeologists with fresh artifacts, including the personal belongings of Union soldiers held there. Camp Lawton, in Millen, Ga., has been the site of an excavation by a team from Georgia Southern University since last year. This week, university officials announced the team had found a ring, a corps badge, keys to furniture and doors, suspender buckles and a pocket knife.

This novel in verse tells of a decent, loving man's life interrupted by two diseases: the Civil War that rent the heart of a nation and the tuberculosis in his own lungs.--Henri Coulette THE FOUNDING FORTUNES A New Anatomy of the Corporate-Rich Families in America by Michael Patrick Allen (Truman Talley/Dutton: $22.50; 480 pp.) This readable, incisive book examines the American economic elite, which owns more than half of all stocks and bonds and wields influence far beyond its numbers.

Map of the Invisible World A Novel Tash Aw Spiegel & Grau: 318 pp., $25 Early in Tash Aw's second novel, "Map of the Invisible World," Din, an Indonesian university student, argues that the West thinks "the history of Southeast Asia started with the discovery of the sea routes from Europe to Asia." The solution to this misapprehension, he tells Margaret, the middle-aged white professor who oversees his research, is to narrate that history in "a voice that is non-Western."

Her name is Milagro, or it was before her mother's heart broke into a million bits. The girl was 4, dark-toned and skinny. On the day soldiers took her away, she wore a violet dress with short sleeves and tiny pleats. She had no shoes. "They took my girl and said, 'Go, old lady!'" recalled her mother, Enma Orellana. The woman ran in fear, looking back just once, when the girl cried, "Mama!" That was 29 years ago, when El Salvador waged war with itself and left hurts that have never healed.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, recently depicted the conflict in Syria as "civil war. " Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton added that there was "every possibility" of civil war breaking out in Syria. Both of these portrayals of the conflict were meant to ratchet up pressure on the international community to prevent further violence. But in fact, describing a conflict as a civil war achieves exactly the opposite effect. It is not a call to arms; it is a call to inaction.

Our Travel section turns its attention this weekend to the greatest of all conflicts on U.S. soil, with stories that cover a geographic spectrum. As an Easterner by birth and a Midwesterner by roots, I had little knowledge of the role the West played in the conflict. Thanks to three men, I learned more about the Civil War and California’s contribution, and I came to appreciate the courage of all who served. When I spotted Andrew Garcia in the reenactment camp at Picacho Peak State Park , about 45 miles from Tucson, I instantly understood the seriousness with which the reenactors see their role.

Civil War buffs may remember that it was David Farragut who uttered, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” as he rallied Union sailors in the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864 in Alabama. What may have been lost in the mists of time, however, is Farragut's heritage: His father was Spanish, and his mother was American. The man who was made a full admiral in 1866 was one of 20,000 warriors in the conflict who claim Hispanic or Latino heritage. That's the emphasis of a 40-page National Parks Service book, “Hispanics and the Civil War: From Battlefield to Homefront,” which outlines the contributions to the war effort, whether North or South.

Under cloudless skies and a radiant sun, a couple of hundred Salvadorans dressed in white gathered early Saturday to name an intersection near downtown Los Angeles in honor of Msgr. Oscar A. Romero, a Catholic archbishop who was slain in 1980 during El Salvador's civil war and whom many consider a martyr. White doves were released; a tree was planted. Speakers recounted Romero's struggle on behalf of the poor and his assassination. His words - "If they kill me, I will be reborn in the Salvadoran people" - were invoked throughout the morning.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Sudan and South Sudan teetered dangerously on the edge of war Thursday after South Sudan refused to withdraw its troops from a disputed border area despite calls to do so by the United Nations and African Union. Sudan, furious about South Sudan's seizure a day earlier of its most important oil field in the town of Heglig, bombed a bridge outside the South Sudan oil town of Bentiu, killing one civilian and wounding four, officials said. The fighting between the two nations was the worst since South Sudan seceded from the north in July after a January 2011 independence referendum.

If you're a Civil War buff or you're planning a trip to a Civil War site, a new  National Park Service website can help you. Even if you're not going anywhere, the website is fascinating to browse, from its lists of places to visit to its facts to the people who played major roles in the war. I'm not sure it's as popular as the recently released 1940 Census data that slowed traffic on that site to a crawl this week,...

This has been one of the worst fortnights in the increasingly unhappy 10 1/2-year Afghan war for NATO and, above all, the United States and its ally, Britain. First there was the burning of the Korans at Bagram air base, which unleashed a wave of religious fury and revenge killings of U.S. troops. Then came the deaths of six British soldiers, incinerated by a giant Taliban bomb last week, which pushed the British death toll in the war over the symbolic 400 mark. Support in Britain for an increasingly unpopular war further deteriorated.

A high-level peace envoy urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to take "concrete steps" to end the turmoil in his nation, the United Nations said Saturday, but a reported offensive against rebels in the country's rugged northwest highlighted the ferocity of the violence almost a year after the country's uprising began. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Assad in Damascus, the Syrian capital, in a bid to head off what U.S. and other officials fear could become a full-fledged civil war in Syria, where protesters and insurgents demanding Assad's ouster have been battling security forces.

Ken Burns, whose landmark documentary on the Civil War established him as one of its quintessential authorities, thinks there's no better way to get a sense of the Civil War than to visit its battlefields, museums and national parks. "When we go to Civil War sites, we're making ourselves available to the ghosts and echoes of … the past," Burns said. "That's what we look for when we stand on Seminary Ridge or Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg [Pa.] and think about the two great armies that collided there on July 1, 2 and 3 of 1863.

On a blustery late-winter afternoon at Manassas, where a muscular statue of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson marks the spot where the Confederate general earned his nickname, the Civil War lives, not separate from life in Virginia, but intricately entwined with it. A father and son inspect cannons in formation for the first major battle in the war that determined what freedom would mean in America. A jogger passes by on her daily route through the suburban sprawl of Washington, D.C., oblivious.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, recently depicted the conflict in Syria as "civil war. " Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton added that there was "every possibility" of civil war breaking out in Syria. Both of these portrayals of the conflict were meant to ratchet up pressure on the international community to prevent further violence. But in fact, describing a conflict as a civil war achieves exactly the opposite effect. It is not a call to arms; it is a call to inaction.

For 40 years, Um Michael has found comfort and serenity amid the soaring pillars and ancient icons of St. Mary's Greek Orthodox cathedral. But as a priest offered up a prayer for peace one recent Sunday, the 70-year-old widow dabbed tears from her eyes. "I was wishing that life would go back to the way it used to be," she said. At night, Um Michael can hear the echoes of fighting near her home in Bab Touma, the centuries-old Christian quarter of Damascus. Like many Christians here, she wonders whether Syria's increasingly bloody, nearly yearlong uprising could shatter the veneer of security provided by President Bashar Assad's autocratic but secular government.