Bøger af William C. Davis

One was a robust charmer given to fits of passion, whose physical appeal could captivate women as easily as cajole colleagues. The other was a frail, melancholy man of quiet intellect, whose ailments drove him eventually to alcohol and drug addiction. Born into different social classes, they were as opposite as men could be. Yet these sons of Georgia, Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens, became fast friends and together changed the course of the South. Writing with the style and authority that has made him one of our most popular historians of the Civil War, William C. Davis has written a biography of a friendship that captures the Confederacy in microcosm. He tells how Toombs and Stephens dominated the formation of the new nation and served as its vice president and secretary of state. After years of disillusionment, each abandoned participation in the government and left to its own fate a Confederacy that would not dance to their tune. Davis traces this unlikely relationship from its early days in the Georgia legislature through the trials of secession and war, revealing how both men persevered during the war and developed a deep animosity for Jefferson Davis. He then chronicles their postwar lives up to the emotional moment when Toombs stood eulogizing his long-time friend at his funeral, just four months after Stephens was elected governor of the Georgia they had loved as much as one another. Drawing extensively on primary sources, including Stephens's voluminous letters and Toombs' widely scattered papers, Davis tells how two men of different temperaments remained friends, out of step with all but a few and occasionally even with each other. He concentrates on their Confederate years, when the fraternity they shared had its greatest impact, to show how they embodied both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Confederacy. While there are biographies of each man, none convey the significance--or the depth--of their friendship. Davis shows us how they loved the South as it once was, the Union as they thought it ought to have been, and the Confederacy of their dreams that never came to be. They lost all three, but through five decades of crisis, they never failed each other.

With 52 color illustrations and 280 historical photographsIn The American Frontier, historian William C. Davis masterfully chronicles the history of the territory beyond the Mississippi, with particular attention to exploration, expansion, conflict, and settlement. In 1804 the frontier of the "West of opportunity" was St. Louis, from which Lewis and Clark set out on their journey of discovery. Their first bold steps provided the key to the greatest adventure of them all, inspiring the emergence of a nation in a momentous century of migration and settlement.Attention turned to the Southwest after Mexico broke free of Spain in 1821. In the next two decades both Texas and California fought to be free of Mexican rule, receiving recognition as republics in their own right. These years also saw the slow spread westward, marked by the Mormons in Utah, the '49ers in California, and the development of stage routes, railways, and other overland trails. Butterfield, Wells Fargo, and Pony Express are names redolent of this age.With the end of the Civil War, in 1865, people of all nations and tongues spread to the West. The story Davis tells is above all one of land and people: the vast plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains; the pioneers, trappers, entrepreneurs, buffalo hunters, miners, soldiers, gamblers, cowboys, lawmen, gunfighters -- people prepared to fight hostile elements to create a place for themselves; and the Indians of the Great Plains, whose land was usurped and who ultimately would be displaced.The American Frontier portrays their lives through artifacts from the collections of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming. Gathered and displayedfor the first time in more than thirty outstanding color spreads, they provide a timely, memorable evocation of frontier America, showing both the legend and the reality of the West as it has never been seen before.

From the first passage in William C. Davis' book about "the twilight of America's innocence" to the last, the reader is carried through what many in the 1860s believed would be the only major conflict between North and South.

Synopsis coming soon.......

More than 140 years after Judah Benjamin first appeared on the Confederate scene, historians still debate his place in the history of the Lost Cause. Robert Douthat Meade's absorbing account of the life of this enigmatic Civil War figure, who built a second brilliant career in England after the war, remains the definitive study of Benjamin.

In this book, William C. Davis narrates one of the most memorable and crucial of the engagements fought for control of the strategically vital Shenandoah Valley - a battle that centred on the farming community of New Market.

One was called "a tin can on a shingle"; the other, "a half-submerged crocodile." Yet, on a March day in 1862 in Hampton Roads, Virginia, after a five-hour duel, the USS. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia(formerly the USS. Merrimack) were to change the course of not only the Civil War but also naval warfare forever.

John C Breckinridge rose to prominence during one of the most turbulent times in our nation's history. This title focuses on Breckinridge's life throughout three key periods, spanning his career as a celebrated statesman, heroic soldier, and proponent of reconciliation.

The author of more than twentyfive books on the Civil War tells the moving story of the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his Union soldiers, who called him "Father Abraham," based on a wealth of soldiers' letters and diaries. Reprint.

Thomas Reid (1710-96) was one of the most daring and original thinkers of the eighteenth century. His work became the cornerstone of the Scottish School of Common Sense Philosophy. This book begins by characterizing the state of moral epistemology at the time when Reid was writing. It offers an assessment of the success of Reid's ethical project.

Since the initial description of techniques to immortalize anti body-producing B-lymphocytes by fusion with tissue culture-adapted myeloma cells, methods have been developed to produce monoclonal antibodies of defined specificity in multiple animal species.

For soldiers in all wars, mealtime is a focal point of the day. Armies do indeed ""march on their stomachs"", as Napoleon said. A Taste for War looks at what soldiers ate during the US Civil War, where they got it, how they prepared it, and what they thought of it.

This work investigates the facts and fictions of the South's victories and defeats during the American Civil War. It debunks long-standing legends, offers evidence explaining Confederate actions and considers the idealism, naivete and courage of military leadership and would-be founding fathers.

This work examines three advanced Latin American republics with long records of democracy, political stability, and economic prosperity which degenerated into instability and military dictatorship-and issues a warning for other democratic peoples.