Jesse JamesJesse James
Last Rebel of the Civil War
Title rated 4.05 out of 5 stars, based on 23 ratings(23 ratings)
Book, 2002
Current format, Book, 2002, 1st ed., Available .eBook
Also offered as eBook, All copies in use. All copies in use
In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure.
"Carries the reader scrupulously through James's violent, violent life.... When [Stiles]... calls Jesse James the 'last rebel of the Civil War; he correctly defines the theme that ruled Jesse's life." --Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove via The New Republic
Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery household in bitterly divided Missouri, at age sixteen James became a bushwhacker, one of the savage Confederate guerrillas that terrorized the border states. After the end of the war, James continued his campaign of robbery and murder into the brutal era of reconstruction, when his reckless daring, his partisan pronouncements, and his alliance with the sympathetic editor John Newman Edwards placed him squarely at the forefront of the former Confederates' bid to recapture political power.
With meticulous research and vivid accounts of the dramatic adventures of the famous gunman, T. J. Stiles shows how he resembles not the apolitical hero of legend, but rather a figure ready to use violence to command attention for a political cause--in many ways, a forerunner of the modern terrorist.
"Carries the reader scrupulously through James's violent, violent life.... When [Stiles]... calls Jesse James the 'last rebel of the Civil War; he correctly defines the theme that ruled Jesse's life." --Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove via The New Republic
Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery household in bitterly divided Missouri, at age sixteen James became a bushwhacker, one of the savage Confederate guerrillas that terrorized the border states. After the end of the war, James continued his campaign of robbery and murder into the brutal era of reconstruction, when his reckless daring, his partisan pronouncements, and his alliance with the sympathetic editor John Newman Edwards placed him squarely at the forefront of the former Confederates' bid to recapture political power.
With meticulous research and vivid accounts of the dramatic adventures of the famous gunman, T. J. Stiles shows how he resembles not the apolitical hero of legend, but rather a figure ready to use violence to command attention for a political cause--in many ways, a forerunner of the modern terrorist.
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- New York : A.A. Knopf, 2002.
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