Jesse James

Last Rebel of the Civil War

Author: T.J. Stiles

The first serious biography of Jesse James in forty years - a stunning reinterpretation of an American icon.

Jesse James began at 16 to fight alongside some of the savage Confederate guerrillas. In the bloodshed that followed Civil War, we see James and his fellow guerrillas, with their gunfights and holdups, become part of the brutal struggle by the White South against racial egalitarianism and Federal power fostered by Reconstruction.

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Summary

The first serious biography of Jesse James in forty years - a stunning reinterpretation of an American icon.

Description

The first serious biography of Jesse James in forty years - a stunning reinterpretation of an American icon.At sixteen, Jesse James began his fighting career by killing Unionist neighbours on their doorsteps. In the bloodshed and bitterness that followed the South's surrender at Appomattox, Jesse and his fellow guerillas, with their gunfights and hold-ups, became part of the intensely brutal struggle by the White South against the racial egalitarianism and Federal power fostered by Reconstruction.In the first serious biography of Jesse James in forty years, T. J. Stiles paints a strikingly new and vivid portrait of the period before the American Civil War, during the conflict and its aftermath. With groundbreaking scholarship and dazzling reinterpretation, T. J. Stiles has refashioned one of the great legends of American history.

Critic Reviews

“A dazzling work of American history”

Sunday Times
A book of inspiring breadth, as impressive in scope as the great Western Plains Guardian
Beautifully composed and exhaustively researched Times Literary Supplement
Stunningly intelligent... Stiles writes superbly. He is set to become one of the great biographers of our time -- Miranda Seymour Sunday Times

About the Author

T. J. Stiles studied history at Carleton College and Columbia University, where he was awarded a President's Fellowship. He has written about American history for Smithsonian and the Los Angeles Times, and is the editor of a five-volume series of anthologies of primary sources. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.