Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall (Southern Classics Series) by Allen Tate, Grady McWhiney ISBN: 1879941244 Publisher: J S Sanders & Co Pub. Date: December, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5
Rating: 5
Summary: A comprehensive, clear-eyed, and lyrical biography
Comment: Poet, essayist, and Southern Agrarian, Allen Tate brings (brought) to his life of Jefferson Davis not only a tremendous narrative talent, but also a deep understanding of, and sympathy for, the Southern culture that produced Jefferson Davis. But unlike other Southern writers who made Davis a larger-than-life hero of the Lost Cause, Tate pulls no punches in his assessment of the President's weaknesses as well as his strengths, and how they may have crippled the Confederacy from the very beginning.
Tate considers Davis a man of high ideals and great personal honor. At the same time, though, he had a "peculiarly inflexible mind" ("he had not learned anything since about 1843") (p. 197) and a "feeble grasp of human nature" (p. 255). He treated his office as a sort of super-minister of defense, and was never "the leader of the Southern people as a whole" (p. 180). The South could have won the war if she had had the right kind of political leader, Tate argues. But Davis, whose rise to leadership was generally unearned (p. 79), wasn't it.
Beyond Davis the man, Tate also has a deep grasp of the Southern culture and the larger historical and cultural issues that were clashing in the War Between the States. In keeping with his Southern Agrarianism, Tate paints the South as the last outpost of European culture in the Americas, standing against -- and ultimately overwhelmed by -- the surging might of restless, expansionist, wealth-seeking "Americanism," embodied in the Yankee Northeast. Tate's grasp of Southern regionalism lets him place an emphasis on the tensions between Upper and Lower South that, for me, shone a light on the instability of the Confederate government that I haven't seen as emphasized elsewhere.
Tate's perspective and narrative form may not be in keeping with more modern styles of biography. But this book is nevertheless an excellent and insightful read, and I recommend it to any student of the men caught up in, as well as the issues behind, America's bloodiest conflict.
Rating: 5
Summary: Eminently readable biography
Comment: This book is no act of idolatry, despite the author's reputation as a Southern conservative and Agrarian. Tate believes Davis was a great man, but he points out his flaws as well, his diffidence in acting sooner that might have won the South the War, his pride, his sometime aloofness, his tendency to remain loyal to generals (Braxton Bragg foremost among them) whose incompetence was all too apparent to others, and his refusal to appoint the right men for the right job.
This is an absorbing read that puts one in mind of Shelby Foote's celebrated War trilogy, although Tate's was written first. It has the same novelistic quality and drive and the same quickly drawn but utterly convincing characterizations. The book alternates between presentations of certain monumental battles and portraits of life on the "homefront." The latter is actually more fascinating than the former. We learn in vivid detail of the strength and loyalty and perseverance of the Southern people.
 |
Title: Jefferson Davis: Private Letters, 1823-1889 by Jefferson Davis, Hudson Strode ISBN: 030680638X Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
 |
Title: The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis, James M. McPherson ISBN: 0306804182 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: October, 1990 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
 |
Title: Jefferson Davis, American by William J., Jr. Cooper ISBN: 0375725423 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 13 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
 |
Title: The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War by Thomas J. Dilorenzo ISBN: 0761536418 Publisher: Prima Publishing Pub. Date: 26 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour by William C. Davis ISBN: 0060167068 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: December, 1991 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
