The Civil War was and extremely disruptive and trans-formative event in American history and the literature of the time reflects this. The Civil War is largely responsible for shaping America as it is today and is arguably the most written about war in history. Writings of the time include histories of events, political speeches and letters, actual and fictional war-heroes.
Major Themes:
The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln by
Abraham Lincoln is the most frequently quoted United States President. In this fascinating compendium are the best, funniest and most profound sayings of this most quotable of Chief Executives. The quotes are arranged according to subject, providing a bit of Lincoln wit and wisdom for any situation. From his youth in pioneer Illinois to the embattled White House of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln never lost his capacity for dry humor--or his extraordinary gift of eloquence.
Whitewashing Uncle Tom's Cabin by
Joy Jordan-Lake examines the ways in which antebellum women novelists tried to counter Harriet Beecher Stoweís enormously popular Uncle Tom's Cabin by preaching a ìtheology of whitenessî from within the pages of the books - but were ultimately undermined by their own proslavery agendas. Including a discussion of twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels that revisit plantation mythology, Whitewashing Uncle Tom's Cabin casts new light on the ethical and moral disaster of securing one groupís economic strength at the expense of other groupsí access to dignity, compassion, and justice.
Stephen Crane by
With the exception of Poe, no American writer has proven as challenging to biographers as the author of The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane's short, compact lifeâe""a life of fire," he called itâe"continues to be surrounded by myths and half-truths, distortions and outright fabrications. Mindful of the pitfalls that have marred previous biographies, Paul Sorrentino has sifted through garbled chronologies and contradictory eyewitness accounts, scoured the archives, and followed in Crane's footsteps. The result is the most complete and accurate account of the poet and novelist written to date. Whether Crane was dressing as a hobo to document the life of the homeless in the Bowery, defending a prostitute against corrupt New York City law enforcement, or covering the historic charge up the San Juan hills as a correspondent during the Spanish-American War, his adventures were front-page news. From Sorrentino's layered narrative of the various phases of Crane's life a portrait slowly emerges. By turns garrulous and taciturn, confident and insecure, romantic and cynical, Crane was a man of irresolvable contradictions. He rebelled against tradition yet was proud of his family heritage; he lived a Bohemian existence yet was drawn to social status; he romanticized women yet obsessively sought out prostitutes; he spurned a God he saw as remote yet wished for His presence. Incorporating decades of research by the foremost authority on Crane's work, Stephen Crane: A Life of Fire sets a new benchmark for biographers.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by
Uncertain of his date of birth or the identity of his father, Frederick Douglass came into the world with one surety: he was born a slave, and would die a slave. But as he grew up, Douglass determined that he would teach himself to read and write, and that one day he would be free from slavery. In 1832, Douglass was sent to a plantation in St. Michael's, where he would live and work as a field hand for more than seven years. According to Douglass, this life was so dispiriting and exhausting, that at times thoughts of freedom all but disappeared from his mind. His journey out of bondage was mental, as well as physical. Douglass would go on to be one of the abolition movement's most persuasive speakers, and would eventually become a strong proponent for women's rights. His famous autobiography, the Narrative, reads like the impassioned plea of an abolitionist tract, compelling in its honest and forceful eloquence. Later Douglass would serve as minister to Haiti and would fight against the southern practice of lynching without benefit of trial by jury. After his first wife's death, he would startle his associates and friends by marrying a white woman, one of the most publicized interracial marriages in America. Douglass died in 1895. He was buried in Rochester, New York.
