Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Historical

This journal records the Civil War experiences of a sensitive, well-educated, young southern woman. Kate Stone was twenty when the war began, living with her widowed mother, five brothers, and younger sister at Brokenburn, their plantation home in northeastern Louisiana. When Grant moved against Vicksburg, the family fled before the invading armies, eventually found refuge in Texas, and finally returned to a devastated home. Kate began her journal in May, 1861, and made regular entries up to November, 1865. She included briefer sketches in 1867 and 1868. In chronicling her everyday...

Although he is recognized today as one of the genuine pioneers of black literature in this century--the author of "If We Must Die," Home to Harlem, Banana Bottom, and A Long Way from Home, among other works--Claude McKay (1890-1948) died penniless and almost forgotten in a Chicago hospital. In this masterly study, Wayne Cooper presents a fascinating, detailed account of McKay's complex, often chaotic, and frequently contradictory life.

In his poetry and fiction, as well as in his political and social commentaries, McKay searched for a solid foundation for a valid...

With Freedom's Lawmakers, Eric Foner has assembled the first comprehensive directory of the over 1,500 African Americans who held political office in the South during the Reconstruction era. He has compiled an impressive amount of information about the antebellum status, occupations, property ownership, and military service of these officials -- who range from U.S. congressmen to local justices of the peace and constables. This revised paperback edition also contains new material on forty-five officials who were not included in the first edition.

In his Introduction, Foner ably analyzes...

"The best biography of Long written to date." -- New Orleans Times-Picayune

"A remarkable work.... Of all the biographies of Huey Long, Hair's] best captures the atmosphere of public life in the Pelican State.... Written with passion and mordant wit, the book is literally hard to put down." -- Reviews in American History

"Well proportioned and tartly written, Hair's book is notable for its conceptualization and exhaustive research, for its analysis of Long's extraordinary control of Louisiana and his role in national politics, and for its interpretation of the Long phenomenon." --...

Originally published in 1875, George Cary Eggleston's memoir, which proved immensely popular among readers throughout the country, is a nostalgic, often amusing collection of essays based on the author's Civil War experiences.

Eggleston describes life in Virginia before the war, offers glowing assessments of the men who made up the Confederate army and the women who stood behind them, satirizes the Confederacy's finances and its army's red tape, and recollects the war's end. He provides compelling portraits of his heroes from the war, lavishing praise on Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson,...

Residents of antebellum northwest Louisiana held strong pro-Union sentiments, and the Pierson family of Bienville Parish, Louisiana, were no exception, opposing secession in 1861. Yet once war began, the region contributed its full share of support to the southern army, and four of William H. Pierson's eight sons enlisted. Ranging from the early battles of the Trans-Mississippi to the epic battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, and from the brutal trenches of Vicksburg to provost guard duty in north Louisiana, this extensive collection of Civil War letters, written by three of the...

Lewis Tappan (1788--1873), founder of the Journal of Commerce and the nation's first credit rating firm, is probably best known for his business accomplishments. His greatest achievement, however, was not finance but freedom. In the 1830s, he and his wealthy brother Arthur underwrote and inspired the Manhattan headquarters of the American Anti-Slavery Society and founded many other organizations to promote freedom, faith, and racial tolerance. As prominent historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown demonstrates in this fascinating portrait, Tappan contributed much more to the cause of liberty and...

Throughout the Civil War era, no other white American spoke more powerfully against slavery and for the ideals of racial democracy than did Wendell Phillips. Nationally famous as "abolition's golden trumpet," Phillips became the North's most widely hailed public lecturer, even though he espoused ideas most regarded as deeply threatening -- the abolition of slavery, equality among races and classes, and women's rights. James Brewer Stewart's study resolves this seeming paradox by showing how Phillips came to possess such extraordinary rhetorical gifts, how he used them to shape the politics...

"Readers will find Brownlow unique, above all, but as entertaining as he is sometimes thrillingly loathsome, full of great energy and rhetorical skill and rambunctiousness in the tradition of the tall tale vernacular writers of the time."-David Madden, Director of the United States Civil War Center

East Tennessee newspaper editor and Methodist preacher William G. "Parson" Brownlow, a man of fervent principles and combative temperament, gained fame during the secession crisis as a staunch, outspoken southern unionist. Unlike most southern unionists, however, Brownlow refused to...