Francis Parkman, Historian as Hero

Francis Parkman, Historian as Hero

Author: Wilbur R. Jacobs

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-07-22

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0292788630

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A historian who lived the kind of history he wrote, Francis Parkman is a major—and controversial—figure in American historiography. His narrative style, while popular with readers wanting a "good story," has raised many questions with professional historians. Was Parkman writing history or historical fiction? Did he color historical figures with his own heroic self-image? Was his objectivity compromised by his "unbending, conservative, Brahmin" values? These are some of the many issues that Wilbur Jacobs treats in this thought-provoking study. Jacobs carefully considers the "apprenticeship" of Francis Parkman, first spent in facing the rigors of the Oregon Trail and later in struggling to write his histories despite a mysterious, frequently incapacitating illness. He shows how these events allowed Parkman to create a heroic self-image, which impelled his desire for fame as a historian and influenced his treatment of both the "noble" and the "savage" characters of his histories. In addition to assessing the influence of Parkman's development and personality on his histories, Jacobs comments on Parkman's relationship to basic social and cultural issues of the nineteenth century. These include the slavery question, Native American issues, expansion of the suffrage to new groups, including women, and anti-Catholicism.


Letters

Letters

Author: Henry James

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1974

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13: 9780674387829

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The third volume of Leon Edel's superb edition of Henry James's letters finds the novelist settled in Europe and his expatriation complete. The letters of this time reflect the growth of James's literary and personal friendships and introduce the reader to the frescoed palazzos, Palladian villas, and great estates of the Roseberys, the Rothschilds, the Bostonian-Venetian Curtises, and the Florentine-American Boott circle. In all his travels, James closely observes the social scene and the dilemmas of the human beings within it. During this fruitful period he writes The Bostonians, The Princess Casamassima, The Tragic Muse, and some thirty-five of his finest international tales. Undermining his success, however, are a devastating series of disappointments. Financial insecurity, an almost paraniod defensiveness following the utter failure of his dramatic efforts, and the deaths of his sister, his friend Robert Louis Stevenson, and his ardent admirer Constance Fenimore Woolson all combine to take him to what he recognizes is the edge of an abyss of personal tragedy. And yet James endures, and throughtout these trials his letters reveal the flourish, the tongue-in-cheek humor, and the social insight that marked his genius. As Edel writes in his Introduction: "The grand style is there, the amusement at the vanities of this world, the insistence that the great ones of the earth lack the imagination he is called upon to supply, and then his boundless affection and empathy for those who have shown him warmth and feeling." In an appendix Mr. Edel presents four remarkable unpublished letters from Miss Woolson to James. These throw light on their ambiguous relationship and on James's feelings of guilt and shock after her suicide in Venice.


LETTERS FROM FRANCIS PARKMAN T

LETTERS FROM FRANCIS PARKMAN T

Author: Francis 1823-1893 Parkman

Publisher: Wentworth Press

Published: 2016-08-27

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 9781371377199

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.


Pioneers of France in the New World

Pioneers of France in the New World

Author: Francis Parkman

Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown

Published: 1885

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13:

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In the sixteenth century, Spain claimed the fabled New World, and a rash of explorers sailed there seeking riches and, most famously, a fountain of youth. Although France made inroads into Florida, ultimately the French, like the Spanish, failed to establish dominion over North America. Francis Parkman tells why. The first part of Pioneers of France in the New World deals with the attempts of the Spanish and the French Huguenots to occupy Florida; the second, with the expeditions of Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain and French colonial endeavors in Canada and Acadia.


A Life of Francis Parkman

A Life of Francis Parkman

Author: Charles Haight Farnham

Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.

Published: 2004-09-01

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 1596050330

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Francis Parkman was a historian of the 18th century. Among other things, and despite health problems that plagued him, including nervous ailments, lameness, and increasing blindness, he traveled west over the Oregon Trail, and then wrote about his experiences (The Oregon Trail, 1847). He went on to turn out eight volumes of history, a book on rose culture, and a novel. He chose a theme of the closest interest to his countrymen -- the colonization of the American continent and the wars for its possession -- and he lived through fifty years of toil to complete the great historical series that he designed when he was but a youth at college. The main attraction of the subject lies in his picturesque, manly character, his inspiring example of fortitude and perseverance, and his training and achievements as a historian. In addition, he was a professor of horticulture at Harvard and a founder of the Archaeological Institute of America.