The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams

The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams PDF Author: T. Harry Williams
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807125144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This first collection of the essays of the late T. Harry Williams brings together some of the best shorter works of a man who was, by any standard, one of the finest historians of our time. Spanning the range of Williams’ interests, this volume contains essays on the Civil War, Reconstruction, the ear of the world wars, military affairs, the craft of the historian, and the careers of Abraham Lincoln, Huey Long, and Lyndon Johnson. Williams’ reputation rests on such large-scale works as Lincoln and His Generals and the Pulitzer-Prize winning biography Huey Long—exhaustively researched studies, monumental in their scope and ambition. Providing Williams with the chance to let his gaze probe beyond the fixed borders of such works, the essay was a flexible medium in which he could freely pursue some of the ideas that grew out of his daily regimen of writing and reading. He used the essay to examine large themes that spanned many areas of his interests as well as specific incidents in the course of American history, to reach both a popular audience and his fellow historians, to test ideas for books in the planning stage, and to assess the works of his colleagues. Among the essays brought together in this volume are “That Strange Sad War,” in which Williams examines the Civil War as the first truly, and tragically, modern war; “Abraham Lincoln: Pragmatic Democrat,” which sees Lincoln as the supreme example in our history of the union of principle and pragmatism in politics; and “The Louisiana Unification Movement of 1873,” which traces the short history of an ambitious attempt to bring about racial unity in Reconstruction Louisiana. In “Interlude: 1918-1939”—an essay published here for the first time—Williams analyzes the weakened state of American military preparedness before Franklin Roosevelt came into office and turned his attention to the growing threat of Hitler’s Germany. In “The Macs and the Ikes: America’s Two Military Traditions,” Williams contrasts the opposing types of military leaders in American history—those generals in the mold of Dwight Eisenhower who follow orders and submit to the power of the president and Congress, and the more fractious generals such as Douglas Macarthur, who view the military as an aristocracy of courage and genius and bridle at the reigns of civilian authority. “Huey, Lyndon, and Southern Radicalism” traces the common political roots of two men Williams considered among the most successful “power artists” of the century. And in “Lyndon Johnson and the Art of Biography,” Williams discusses his own plans to write a biography of Johnson and speaks of his unapologetic belief in a great-man theory of history.

The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams

The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams PDF Author: T. Harry Williams
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807125144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
This first collection of the essays of the late T. Harry Williams brings together some of the best shorter works of a man who was, by any standard, one of the finest historians of our time. Spanning the range of Williams’ interests, this volume contains essays on the Civil War, Reconstruction, the ear of the world wars, military affairs, the craft of the historian, and the careers of Abraham Lincoln, Huey Long, and Lyndon Johnson. Williams’ reputation rests on such large-scale works as Lincoln and His Generals and the Pulitzer-Prize winning biography Huey Long—exhaustively researched studies, monumental in their scope and ambition. Providing Williams with the chance to let his gaze probe beyond the fixed borders of such works, the essay was a flexible medium in which he could freely pursue some of the ideas that grew out of his daily regimen of writing and reading. He used the essay to examine large themes that spanned many areas of his interests as well as specific incidents in the course of American history, to reach both a popular audience and his fellow historians, to test ideas for books in the planning stage, and to assess the works of his colleagues. Among the essays brought together in this volume are “That Strange Sad War,” in which Williams examines the Civil War as the first truly, and tragically, modern war; “Abraham Lincoln: Pragmatic Democrat,” which sees Lincoln as the supreme example in our history of the union of principle and pragmatism in politics; and “The Louisiana Unification Movement of 1873,” which traces the short history of an ambitious attempt to bring about racial unity in Reconstruction Louisiana. In “Interlude: 1918-1939”—an essay published here for the first time—Williams analyzes the weakened state of American military preparedness before Franklin Roosevelt came into office and turned his attention to the growing threat of Hitler’s Germany. In “The Macs and the Ikes: America’s Two Military Traditions,” Williams contrasts the opposing types of military leaders in American history—those generals in the mold of Dwight Eisenhower who follow orders and submit to the power of the president and Congress, and the more fractious generals such as Douglas Macarthur, who view the military as an aristocracy of courage and genius and bridle at the reigns of civilian authority. “Huey, Lyndon, and Southern Radicalism” traces the common political roots of two men Williams considered among the most successful “power artists” of the century. And in “Lyndon Johnson and the Art of Biography,” Williams discusses his own plans to write a biography of Johnson and speaks of his unapologetic belief in a great-man theory of history.

The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams

The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams PDF Author: Thomas Harry Williams
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780807110959
Category : Reconstruction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Examines the Civil War, the period of Reconstruction, and the political careers of Abraham Lincoln, Huey Long, and Lyndon Johnson

The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams

The Selected Essays of T. Harry Williams PDF Author: Thomas H. Williams
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780783777504
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description


Why The North Won The Civil War

Why The North Won The Civil War PDF Author: David Herbert Donald
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786251981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
WHY THE SOUTH LOST What led to the downfall of the Confederacy? The distinguished professors of history represented in this volume examine the following crucial factors in the South’s defeat: ECONOMIC—RICHARD N. CURRENT of the University of Wisconsin attributes the victory of the North to fundamental economic superiority so great that the civilian resources of the South were dissipated under the conditions of war. MILITARY—T. HARRY WILLIAMS of Louisiana State University cites the deficiencies of Confederate strategy and military leadership, evaluating the influence on both sides of Baron Jomini, a 19th-century strategist who stressed position warfare and a rapid tactical offensive. DIPLOMATIC—NORMAN A. GRAERNER of the University of Illinois holds that the basic reason England and France decided not to intervene on the side of the South was simply that to have done so would have violated the general principle of non-intervention to which they were committed. SOCIAL—DAVID DONALD of Columbia University offers the intriguing thesis that an excess of Southern democracy killed the Confederacy. From the ordinary man in the ranks to Jefferson Davis himself, too much emphasis was placed on individual freedom and not enough on military discipline. POLITICAL—DAVID M. POTTER of Stanford University suggests that the deficiencies of President Davis as a civil and military leader turner the balance, and that the South suffered from the lack of a second well-organized political party to force its leadership into competence.

Huey Long

Huey Long PDF Author: Thomas Harry Williams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Governors
Languages : en
Pages : 958

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Book Description
He was one of the most extraordinary figures in America's political history, a great natural politician who had become, at the time of his assassination, a serious rival to Franklin D. Roosevelt for the presidency.

White Trash

White Trash PDF Author: Nancy Isenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110160848X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
The New York Times bestseller A New York Times Notable and Critics’ Top Book of 2016 Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction One of NPR's 10 Best Books Of 2016 Faced Tough Topics Head On NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2016’s Great Reads San Francisco Chronicle's Best of 2016: 100 recommended books A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2016 Globe & Mail 100 Best of 2016 “Formidable and truth-dealing . . . necessary.” —The New York Times “This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.” —O Magazine In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg upends history as we know it by taking on our comforting myths about equality and uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash. “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,” says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters who boosted Trump all the way to the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity. We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.

Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism

Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism PDF Author: Walter E. Williams
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 0817949135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
In this selected collection of his syndicated newspaper columns, Walter Williams offers his sometimes controversial views on education, health, the environment, government, law and society, race, and a range of other topics. Although many of these essays focus on the growth of government and our loss of liberty, many others demonstrate how the tools of freemarket economics can be used to improve our lives in ways ordinary people can understand.

Lee and His Generals

Lee and His Generals PDF Author: Lawrence Lee Hewitt
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572338865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A legendary professor at Louisiana State University, T. Harry Williams not only produced such acclaimed works as Lincoln and the Radicals, Lincoln and His Generals, and a biography of Huey Long that won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, but he also mentored generations of students who became distinguished historians in their own right. In this collection, ten of those former students, along with one author greatly inspired by Williams’s example, offer incisive essays that honor both Williams and his career-long dedication to sound, imaginative scholarship and broad historical inquiry. The opening and closing essays, fittingly enough, deal with Williams himself: a biographical sketch by Frank J. Wetta and a piece by Roger Spiller that place Williams in larger historical perspective among writers on Civil War generalship. The bulk of the book focuses on Robert E. Lee and a number of the commanders who served under him, starting with Charles Roland’s seminal article “The Generalship of Robert E. Lee,” the only one in the collection that has been previously published. Among the essays that follow Roland’s are contributions by Brian Holden Reid on the ebb and flow of Lee’s reputation, George C. Rable on Stonewall Jackson’s deep religious commitment, A. Wilson Greene on P. G. T. Beauregard’s role in the Petersburg Campaign, and William L. Richter on James Longstreet as postwar pariah. Together these gifted historians raise a host of penetrating and original questions about how we are to understand America’s defining conflict in our own time—just as T. Harry Williams did in his. And by encompassing such varied subjects as military history, religion, and historiography, Lee and His Generals demonstrates once more what a fertile field Civil War scholarship remains. Lawrence Lee Hewitt is professor of history emeritus at Southeastern Louisiana University. Most recently, he and Arthur W. Bergeron, now deceased, coedited three volumes of essays under the collective title Confederate Generals in the Western Theater. Thomas E. Schott served for many years as a historian for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command. He is the author of Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography, which won both the Society of American Historians Award and the Jefferson Davis Award.

History Teaches Us to Hope

History Teaches Us to Hope PDF Author: Charles Roland
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813129176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Before his death in 1870, Robert E. Lee penned a letter to Col. Charles Marshall in which he argued that we must cast our eyes backward in times of turmoil and change, concluding that “it is history that teaches us to hope.” Charles Pierce Roland, one of the nation’s most distinguished and respected historians, has done exactly that, devoting his career to examining the South’s tumultuous path in the years preceding and following the Civil War. History Teaches Us to Hope: Reflections on the Civil War and Southern History is an unprecedented compilation of works by the man the volume editor John David Smith calls a “dogged researcher, gifted stylist, and keen interpreter of historical questions.”Throughout his career, Roland has published groundbreaking books, including The Confederacy (1960), The Improbable Era: The South since World War II (1976), and An American Iliad: The Story of the Civil War (1991). In addition, he has garnered acclaim for two biographical studies of Civil War leaders: Albert Sidney Johnston (1964), a life of the top field general in the Confederate army, and Reflections on Lee (1995), a revisionist assessment of a great but frequently misunderstood general. The first section of History Teaches Us to Hope, “The Man, The Soldier, The Historian,” offers personal reflections by Roland and features his famous “GI Charlie” speech, “A Citizen Soldier Recalls World War II.” Civil War–related writings appear in the following two sections, which include Roland’s theories on the true causes of the war and four previously unpublished articles on Civil War leadership. The final section brings together Roland’s writings on the evolution of southern history and identity, outlining his views on the persistence of a distinct southern culture and his belief in its durability. History Teaches Us to Hope is essential reading for those who desire a complete understanding of the Civil War and southern history. It offers a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary historian.

Wayfaring

Wayfaring PDF Author: Alan Jacobs
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802865682
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
"With Wayfaring, Jacobs continues his tradition of exploring Christian theology and experience by way of the essay-- Jacobs muses on the usefulness and dangers of blogging, the art of dictionary making, the world of Harry Potter, and an appreciation of trees."--Publisher's description.