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As new condition gold boards with a black spine and gold spine lettering contained in an as new condition non price-clipped photographic dust jacket. Includes List of Other Books by T.J. Stiles; Author Dedication; Preliminary Page Quote by Leo Tolstoy; List of Illustrations; List of Maps; Preface; Acknowledgments; Notes; Primary Source Bibliography; and About the Author. Illustrated with two sections of black-and-white photographic plates and a preliminary page map. "From the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, a brilliant new biography of Gen. George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times. In this magisterial biography, T.J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal ans sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer's legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer's historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person -- capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court martialed twice is six years). The key to understanding Custer, Stiles writes, is keeping in mind that he lived on a frontier in time. In the Civil War, the West, and many areas overlooked in previous biographies, Custer helped to create modern America, but he could never adapt to it. He freed countelss slaves yet rejected new civil rights laws. He proved his heroism but missed the dark reality of war for so many others. A talented combat leader, he struggled as a manager in the West. He tried to make a fortune on Wall Street yet never connected with the new corporate economy. Native Americans fascinated him, but he could not see them as fully human. A popular writer, he remained apart from Ambrose Bierce, Mark Tawain, and other rising intellectuals. During Custer's lifetime, Americans saw their world remade. His admirers saw him as the embodiement of the nation's gallant younth, of all that they were losing; his detractors despised him for resisting a more complex and promising future. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation in Custuer's tumultuous marriage to his highly educated wife, Libbie; their complicated relationship with Eliza Brown, the forceful black woman who ran their household; as wel as his battles and expeditions. It casts surprising new light on a near-mythic American figure, a man both widely known and little understood." - from the inner front jacket flap. "T.J. Stiles has done it again. With this searching, memorable portrait of George Armstrong Custer, Stiles recaptures the complexities of a man whom posterity has been content to caricature - until now, in this wonderful book." - Jon Meacham, author. "T.J. Stiles has written another splendid book. He portrays a real Custer, full of flaws but possessed of outstanding combat skills and leadership. This biography easily overshadows its many predecessors, offering new facts and interpretations as well as a wonderful read." - Robert Utley, author. "Despite the numerous works on Custer, this thoroughly researched and riveting book is new. It is the first to interpret him as a representative of his times." - Shirley Leckie Reed, author. "George A. Custer has proven an enduring metaphor for the American West, an 'exaggerated American' seen as flamboyant military hero, icon of national expansion, or doomed oppressor of Native Americans. In this compelling portrait of this central figure of American history, T.J. Stiles brilliantly examines Custer within transforming national events in the nineteenth century - civil war, slavery's end, the morass of Reconstruction, and economic and social modernization that privileged the powerful under guise of democaratic triumph - proving yet again why he is this generation's finest biographer." - Christopher Phillips, author. Seller Inventory # 006158
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