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"The Gray Ghost is what they call me. John Mosby is my name."

THESE WORDS, la- conically uttered by an altogether too handsome actor playing John Singleton Mosby, introduced each episode of the 1957-58 television series "The Gray Ghost."

Viewed today, that short-lived series features implausible plots, poor costuming, crude production values and even worse history. To a rapt 7-year-old boy, however, Mosby and his men galloping over the Southern California countryside were Robin Hood-like heroes triumphing over evil in the form of hopelessly inept Yankees. Little did I know it at the time, but what I was watching was a precursor to the nation's observance of the 100th anniversary of the Civil War.

Now, there is a book that chronicles the centennial of the Civil War. Just in time for the sesquicentennial of the war, Robert J. Cook's "Troubled Commemoration" provides an extensively researched, well-written analysis of the successes and failures (mostly failures, in the author's view) of the official observance of the centennial.

Cook, a professor of American history at the University of Sheffield in England, has produced a scholarly, if somewhat expensive ($45), narrative, but one that is accessible to the layman. However, the potential reader should be warned that he or she will encounter more than a little jargon of the historian's trade. (Beware of "consensus," "counter memory" and "the academy.")

"Troubled Commemoration" is really two books in one. The great majority of the text analyzes the official observance of the Civil War centennial as seen through the U. S. Civil War Centennial Commission created by Congress in 1957. It traces the formation of the commission, its mission and its troubled relationship with state commissions and the federal government.

The author deals with products and events not directly resulting from commission activities in much less detail in the latter part of the book. Those include books (Bruce Catton's trilogy, Shelby Foote's "The Civil War, a Narrative"), magazines (American Heritage), movies ("Shenandoah," "The Horse Soldiers"), television shows ("The Gray Ghost," "The Americans"), new visitor centers at battlefields, etc., that were probably more influential than anything the commission did.