Robert E. Lee was both a military genius and a spiritual leader, considered by many—southerners and nonsoutherners alike—to have been a near saint. In The Marble Man a leading Civil War military historian examines the hold of Lee on the American mind and traces the campaign in historiography that elevated him to national hero status.
Life has taken a sudden interior turn but the literature of the lockdown may have already been written. A century ago writers throughout the supposedly civilised world realised their once familiar, domestic world had changed profoundly and began to describe it in singular unsettling ways. The best word for what they found and how they described it is the German one ‘unheimlich’ whereby the familiar or homely is suddenly strange; a unique word for which we have in English the unsatisfactory ‘uncanny’. In his essay of 1919, Freud used the word ‘unheimlich’ to describe the disquieting, unsettling short fiction of his time. As has been noted by the critic Mark Fisher and others however, he structured his inquiry into the unheimlich on the stories themselves, unable to create a theory which superseded them. These stories have endured. We have collected together the best of them — the funny, the horrific and the simply disturbing — to offer insight and commentary on the strange world we have been living in. E Nesbitt’s ghost story is elevated from the thousands that were published in popular magazines such as the Strand in the early 20th century by the way she places a barely-competent middle class couple in a situation frighteningly beyond their depth.
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor. "An important contribution to reconciling the myths with the facts." —New York Times Book Review Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral, but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Robert was just six years old. In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.
“Pryor’s biography helps part with a lot of stupid out there about Lee – chiefly, that he was, somehow, ‘anti-slavery.’” – Ta-Nehisi Coates, theatlantic.com An “unorthodox, critical, and engaging biography” (Boston Globe) – Winner of The Lincoln Prize Robert E. Lee is remembered by history as a tragic figure, stoic and brave but distant and enigmatic. Using dozens of previously unpublished letters as departure points, Pryor produces a stunning personal account of Lee's military ability, shedding new light on every aspect of the complex and contradictory general's life story. Explained for the first time in the context of the young United States's tumultuous societal developments, Lee's actions reveal a man forced to play a leading role in the formation of the nation at the cost of his private happiness.
"From 1501 to 1505, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti both lived and worked in Florence. Leonardo was a charming, handsome fifty year-old at the peak of his career. Michelangelo was a temperamental sculptor in his mid-twenties, desperate to make a name for himself. The two despise each other."--Front jacket flap.
The Marble and the Sculptor provides readers with a clear path from law student to lawyer, with a fundamental understanding of what it expected of him or her as a new attorney: the triumphs and tragedies, the ups and downs, and the wins and losses. It will provide a foundation from which new lawyers can grow and build their own successful careers. In other words, it is THE go-to handbook for all aspiring new lawyers.
With rigorous research and unprecedented insight into Robert E. Lee's personal and public lives, Michael Fellman here uncovers the intelligent, ambitious, and often troubled man behind the legend, exploring his life within the social, cultural, and political context of the nineteenth-century American South.
Brought up in an evangelical household in the Bible Belt, Hatcher's religion had provided no answers to his parents' broken marriage, or his own divorce. The key to his salvation would come from a most unlikely source: a flyer calling for Peace Corps volunteers. As a geography teacher at an all-girls' boarding school in Tanzania, he's expected broaden his students' horizons, but instead it is his own worldview that is challenged. Through tragedy and triumph, by questioning the very core of his being, he manages to escape the confines of his "marble room" and gain a new understanding of himself and God.
When the frozen body of a murder victim turns up on a Vermont mountain, Lieutenant Joe Gunther uncovers links to a priceless mask sculpted by Michelangelo that mysteriously vanished in Italy during World War II.