Bøger af Brian Steel Wills

"Brian Steel Wills' captures for the first time a comprehensive view of the actor's climb to fame, his search for the perfect performance, and the meaningful roles he played in support of the causes he embraced in Running the Race: The "Public Face" of Charlton Heston, the first full-length biography of the actor in many years. Award-winning historian Brian Steel Wills dug deep to paint a rich portrait of Heston's extraordinary life-a mix of complications and complexities that touched film, television, theater, politics, and society. His carefully crafted "public face" was impactful in more ways than the ordinarily shy and private family man could have ever imagined"--

Of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who died in the Civil War, two-thirds, by some estimates, were felled by disease; untold others were lost to accidents, murder, suicide, sunstroke, and drowning. Meanwhile thousands of civilians in both the north and south perishedin factories, while caught up in battles near their homes, and in other circumstances associated with wartime production and supply. These inglorious passages, no less than the deaths of soldiers in combat, devastated the armies in the field and families and communities at home. Inglorious Passages for the first time gives these noncombat deaths due consideration.In letters, diaries, obituaries, and other accounts, eminent Civil War historian Brian Steel Wills finds the powerful and poignant stories of fatal accidents and encounters and collateral civilian deaths that occurred in the factories and fields of the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. Wills retrieves these stories from obscurity and the cold calculations of statistics to reveal the grave toll these losses exacted on soldiers and civilians, families and society. In its intimate details and its broad scope, his book demonstrates that for those who served and those who supported them, noncombat fatalities were as significant as battle deaths in impressing the full force of the American Civil War on the people called upon to live through it. With the publication of Inglorious Passages, those who paid the supreme sacrifice, regardless of situation or circumstance, will at last be included in the final tabulation of the nations bloodiest conflict.

During the Civil War, North Carolinian William Dorsey Pender established himself as one of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's best young generals. In this thorough biography of Pender, Civil War historian Brian Steel Wills examines both the young general's military career and his domestic life.

This work reconstructs life for soldiers from the region on the battlefield and for civilians in the homes of southeastern Virginia, providing a depiction of what life was like for the ordinary person - black, white, soldier, or Unionist - contending with the hardships of the Civil War.

The definitive biography of George Henry Thomas, who is often counted among the Union's top five generals. Provides a new and more complete look at a man known to history as "the Rock of Chickamauga" and to General William T. Ssherman as a soldier who was "as true as steel."

Since 1982, the renowned Civil War historian James I. "e;Bud"e; Robertson's Civil War Sites in Virginia: A Tour Guide has enlightened and informed Civil War enthusiasts and scholars alike. The book expertly explores the commonwealth's Civil War sites for those hoping to gain greater insight and understanding of the conflict. But in the years since the book's original publication, accessibility to many sites and the interpretive material available have improved dramatically. In addition, new historical markers have been erected, and new historically significant sites have been developed, while other sites have been lost to modern development or other encroachments. The historian Brian Steel Wills offers here a revised and updated edition that retains the core of the original guide, with its rich and insightful prose, but that takes these major changes into account, introducing especially the benefits of expanded interpretation and of improved accessibility. The guide incorporates new information on the lives of a broad spectrum of soldiers and citizens while revisiting scenes associated with the era's most famous personalities. New maps and a list of specialized tour suggestions assist in planning visits to sites, while three dozen illustrations, from nineteenth-century drawings to modern photographs, bring the war and its impact on the Old Dominion vividly to life. With the sesquicentennial remembrances of the American Civil War heightening interest and spurring improvements, there may be no better time to learn about and visit these important and moving sites than now.

Published for Wise's fiftieth anniversary, to be celebrated in September 2004, Brian Steel Wills's history is essential reading for the college's alumni, faculty and administrators, and for anyone interested in a heroic chapter in the history of public higher education in Virginia.

From Birth of a Nation to Cold Mountain, Hollywood has used the Civil War to create compelling cinema with each generation resolving the tug of war between entertainment value and historical accuracy differently. Wills looks at the portrayal of the war in film, explores their accuracy, how the films influenced each other, and how they reflect America's changing understandings of the conflict and of the nation.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a renowned cavalryman who fought during the American Civil War. This book presents an analysis of his life, from childhood in Mississippi, to wealth from the slave trade, his role as founder and Grand Wizard of the first Ku Klux Klan, and his death.