The premier secessionist of antebellum Mississippi, John A. Quitman was one of the half-dozen or so most prominent radicals in the entire South. In this full-length biography, Robert E. May takes issue with the recent tendency to portray secessionists as rabble-rousing, maladjusted outsiders bent on the glories of separate nationhood. May reveals Quitman to have been an ambitious but relatively stable insider who reluctantly advocated secession because of a despondency over slavery's long-range future in the Union and a related conviction that northerners no longer respected southern claims...
The premier secessionist of antebellum Mississippi, John A. Quitman was one of the half-dozen or so most prominent radicals in the entire South. In th...
In a region famous for its flamboyant politicians, Earl K. Long was one of the most flamboyant of them all. This first full-scale biography of the former Louisiana governor explores his controversial life-style and his strong family ties, his raw humor and his political savvy, his abuse of power and his accomplishments in the areas of civil rights and public services. Michael L. Kurtz and Morgan D. Peoples provide new information from recently declassified FBI files concerning Earl's ties with organized crime figures, give the first comprehensive account of his stays in mental institutions...
In a region famous for its flamboyant politicians, Earl K. Long was one of the most flamboyant of them all. This first full-scale biography of the ...
Considering the course his life took, one might wonder how Zachary Taylor ever came to be elected the twelfth president of the United States. According to K. Jack Bauer, Taylor "was and remains an enigma." He was a southerner who espoused many antisouthern causes, an aristocrat with a strong feeling for the common man, an energetic yet cautious and conservative soldier. Not an intellectual, Taylor showed little curiosity about the world around him. In this biography -- the most comprehensive since Holman Hamilton's two-volume work published more than thirty years ago -- Bauer offers a...
Considering the course his life took, one might wonder how Zachary Taylor ever came to be elected the twelfth president of the United States. Accor...
In the first full-scale biography of Calhoun in almost fifty years, John Niven presents a new interpretation of this preeminent spokesman of the Old South. Skillfully blending Calhoun's public career with important elements of his private life, Niven shows Calhoun to have been at once a more consistent politician and a more complex human being than previous historians have portrayed. This masterly retelling of John C. Calhoun's eventful life is a model biography.
In the first full-scale biography of Calhoun in almost fifty years, John Niven presents a new interpretation of this preeminent spokesman of the Old S...
First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, T. Harry Williams' P.G.T. Beauregard is universally regarded as "the first authoritative portrait of the Confederacy's always dramatic, often perplexing" general (Chicago Tribune). Chivalric, arrogant, and of exotic Creole Louisiana origin, Beauregard participated in every phase of the Civil War from its beginning to its end. He rigidly adhered to principles of war derived from his studies of Jomini and Napoleon, and yet many of his battle plans were rejected by his superiors, who regarded him as excitable, unreliable, and contentious. After the war,...
First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, T. Harry Williams' P.G.T. Beauregard is universally regarded as "the first authoritative portrait of the Conf...
In George Washington, John R. Alden traces the interwoven histories of Washington and the nation he helped to create, defend, and guide toward the future. Alden recreates the major events of Washington's personal and professional life, including his boyhood in rural Virginia, his early careers as a surveyor and then a soldier in the French and Indian War, and his staid but enduring marriage. The core of the biography is devoted to Washington's leadership roles-his assumption of the post of commander in chief of the Continental Army, his part in the Constitutional Convention, and his...
In George Washington, John R. Alden traces the interwoven histories of Washington and the nation he helped to create, defend, and guide toward the fut...
Fiercely independent and, in his own words, "mean as hell, " Eugene Talmadge dominated Georgia politics for almost twenty years. This is the first full biography of one of the last of the southern demagogues, based on interviews with Talmadge's family and associates.
Fiercely independent and, in his own words, "mean as hell, " Eugene Talmadge dominated Georgia politics for almost twenty years. This is the first ful...
David Boyd's biography is the story of one man's dedicated struggle to protect and preserve Louisiana's fledgling state university from the cumulative effects of war, Reconstruction, political hostility, and parochial greed. Boyd fought hard to promote his vision of higher education among a largely antagonistic or apathetic citizenry. He died, bitter and disillusioned, in 1899, without realizing his dream. But his life was not wasted. Clearly those who governed the university in more prosperous days owned much of their success to the devotion and self-sacrifice of this heroic figure.
David Boyd's biography is the story of one man's dedicated struggle to protect and preserve Louisiana's fledgling state university from the cumulat...
