|
American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America Posters
Photos Art
Search for Posters Art Prints, photos and get
results from all the many categories from Amazon including
books, videos, dvds, toys, video games, and more.
|
|
|
Posters Art
Prints Photos collectables |
|
|
|
|
|
|
If for some reason you can't find what the
poster or art print your looking for try using the search boxes
below
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
List Price: $27.95Amazonaws.com's Price: $18.45 You Save: $9.50 (34%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Now!
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.2
Fabric Type: 9780393070101
Fax Number: 1St Edition
Legal Disclaimer: 0393070107
Maximum Color Depth: W. W. Norton & Company
Metal Type: W. W. Norton & Company
Publisher: 1
Region Code: 304
Total External Bays Free: May 18, 2009
Total Firewire Ports: W. W. Norton & Company
W. W. Norton & Company
Features:- ISBN13: 9780393070101
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
These revelatory stories of American heroes and their undaunted courage will forever alter our understanding of American history. The last two decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in the founding fathers so intense that a reader or television viewer of today might imagine that America was the creation of beings who were flawless in their wisdom and courage. As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edmund S. Morgan shows here, Americans have long been obsessed with their heroes. But, drawing on a lifetime of scholarship, he presents a different cast of characters—among them Indians, witches, heretics, and naysayers—men and women who went against the grain, in addition to the stock figures of our national hagiography.
Morgan has mined the seventeenth century and has identified several new heroes, among them Giles Cory and Mary Easty, accused witches, who were put to death when Puritanism went wrong at Salem in 1692. Pressured to reprieve herself by admitting her guilt and naming friends and neighbors as confederates in witchcraft, Easty declared, “I dare not belie my own soul.” Her humble statement stands as the ultimate expression of the religious principles that led to the founding of New England, principles temporarily abandoned by the rulers of Massachusetts Bay who tried and sentenced her.
While American Heroes celebrates the lives and principles of ordinary Americans, the book also considers the legacy of some of our most prominent colonial and Revolutionary leaders, among them William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. Franklin and Washington are best known for standing against the repressive and often brutal regime of Great Britain’s colonial policies, but here Morgan makes the case for their heroism in standing up to their own countrymen. When Americans were demanding precipitate action, Washington and Franklin got the nation off to a good start by knowing when to say no.
Whether presenting the scandalous story of a Puritan husband whose on-and-off marriage to a beleaguered Puritan heiress illustrates the nexus between property and sex, or assessing the power of books to subvert the standing order and alter the course of history, American Heroes rises above hagiography in challenging the reader to conceive of American individuality and idealism in new terms. Morgan, who credits his mentor Perry Miller “with the best historical mind of his generation,” has shown throughout his own career an unrivaled originality and intellectual courage. American Heroes demonstrates Morgan’s fascination with our national identity and his abiding affection for the men and women whose character, honesty, and moral courage make plain that heroism in America can be found in unexpected places.
.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
There are American historians, there are great American historians, and then there is Edmund Morgan. Morgan's work has redefined much of the American past, and especially early American history. Only Bernard Bailyn can stand with him as an interpreter of the colonial American past. So it is particularly good news that updated versions of many of Morgan's classic essays are now available in one book -- or in my case, one unabridged CD.
Other reviewers correctly note that the book's ... Read More
Rating:  -
Edmund S. Morgan gives us a lengthy sample of his written musings from a period of many years (most have the dates they were published at the end) about various notable people in America's early history. Mr. Morgan often sounds like a typical on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand professor imparting his words of wisdom to a class of nodding students -- but that doesn't necessarily make the book uninteresting to read.
However, I question his choice of the word "heroes" to describe some ... Read More
Rating:  -
I normally enjoy history books, and read a favorable reference to this book in the WSJ, so I bought it. However, it seems to be basically an edited collection of the author's old essays, most of which don't seem particularly poignant in the first place. The whole theme of the book (basically, a new interpretation of "American heros,") doesn't even really seem cohesive... I can't find much of a unifying point to the various essays. The articles are fairly interesting, and pretty well-written, but ... Read More
Rating:  -
In my estimation, Edmund Morgan is one of the finest American historians of his or any other generation and I have read a number of his earlier books. Morgan is now 93 years old, so I was surprised to see a new book from him on the shelves. And of course, it turns out that the book is a collection of essays written over the past many years. Most of the pieces have been previously published. So, now you are forewarned. How much that matters depends in part on how much you enjoy reading Edmund ... Read More
Rating: -
This is an odd little book by the well-known--and respected--historian, Edmund Morgan. This is a collection of brief essays, focusing on what the author refers to as "men and women who shaped early America."
The essays really aren't tied together, but many of these are still interesting reflections that trigger the reader's reflections about subjects covered. Subjects considered run from Christopher Columbus (and his imposition of slavery on native Americans), to the Puritans of New England ... Read More
|
