Jesse James, T. J. Stiles
Jesse James, T. J. Stiles
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Jesse James
Last Rebel of the Civil War

Author: T. J. Stiles

Narrator: Christopher Lane

Unabridged: 18 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/01/2019

Synopsis

In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure. Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery household in bitterly divided Misssouri, at age sixteen James became a bushwhacker, one of the savage Confederate guerrillas that terrorized the border states. After the end of the war, James continued his campaign of robbery and murder into the brutal era of reconstruction, when his reckless daring, his partisan pronouncements, and his alliance with the sympathetic editor John Newman Edwards placed him squarely at the forefront of the former Confederates’ bid to recapture political power. With meticulous research and vivid accounts of the dramatic adventures of the famous gunman, T. J. Stiles shows how he resembles not the apolitical hero of legend, but rather a figure ready to use violence to command attention for a political cause—in many ways, a forerunner of the modern terrorist.

About T. J. Stiles

T. J. Stiles is the author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, winner of the 2009 National Book Award in Nonfiction and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, which won the Ambassador Book Award and the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship. A member of the Society of American Historians, he wrote his latest book, Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, with the assistance of a Guggenheim fellowship. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and two children.

Reviews

Goodreads review by T.j. on December 11, 2008

I wrote this book.......more

Goodreads review by Al on April 17, 2018

I picked this up a few years ago when I visited Jesse James birthplace. For whatever reason, it kept getting pushed back in the to-read pile. Having visited the James place, I learned his story. There has been a revision of how we view James- not an outlaw of the Cowboy movie, but a Confederate who......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on December 23, 2011

My four-star rating is a compromise between what I objectively think of the quality of this book and how much enjoyment I had in reading it. Stiles has written an impeccably researched, thorough, detailed biography of James; as such it deserves five stars. But it was a hard read for me. Jesse James,......more

Goodreads review by Curtis on December 01, 2010

A well written book that takes a look at the James and Younger Brothers in the context of the politics of their times. Largely debunks the idea that JJ was some sort of folk hero or Robin Hood rather suggesting he usurped those ideas to further his own interests. In point of fact Jesse James, Cole Y......more

Goodreads review by Julia on October 20, 2022

For information, this book deserves 5 stars. The reason for my rating is that I usually rate based on my enjoyment. I don’t mind being challenged, but portions of this book read like a textbook, and sometimes I could only get through a page or two before I had to stop. That said, the documentation......more

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