In Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare, Leigh Raiford argues that over the past one hundred years activists in the black freedom struggle have used photographic imagery both to gain political recognition and to develop a different visual vocabulary about black lives. Raiford analyzes why activists chose photography over other media, explores the doubts some individuals had about the strategies, and shows how photography became an increasingly effective, if complex, tool in representing black political interests.

Offering readings of the use of photography in the antilynching movement, the civil rights movement, and the black power movement, Raiford focuses on key transformations in technology, society, and politics to understand the evolution of photography's deployment in capturing white oppression, black resistance, and African American life. By putting photography at the center of the long African American freedom struggle, Raiford also explores how the recirculation of these indelible images in political campaigns and art exhibits both adds to and complicates our memory of the events.

zachomikowany

5,7 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Leigh Raiford - Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare, Ph otography and the African American Freedom Struggl e (2011).pdf

zachomikowany

133 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

William H Chafe - The Achievement of American Libe ralism, The New Deal and Its Legacies (2003).jpg

The New Deal established the contours and character of modern American democracy. It created an anchor and a reference point for American liberal politics through the struggles for racial, gender, and economic equality in the five decades that followed it. Indeed, the ways that liberalism has changed in meaning since the New Deal provide a critical prism through which to understand twentieth-century politics. From the consensus liberalism of the war years to the strident liberalism of the sixties to the besieged liberalism of the eighties and through the more recent national debates about welfare reform and Social Security privatization, the prominent historians gathered here explore the convoluted history of the complex legacy of the New Deal and its continuing effect on the present.

In its scope and variety of subjects, this book reflects the protean quality of American liberalism. Alan Brinkley focuses on the range of choices New Dealers faced. Alonzo Hamby traces the Democratic Party's evolving effort to incorporate New Deal traditions in the Cold War era. Richard Fried offers a fresh look at the impact of McCarthyism. Richard Polenberg situates Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, in a tradition of liberal thought. And Melvin Urosfsky shows how the Roosevelt Court set the legal dimensions within which the debate about the meaning of liberalism would be conducted for decades. Other subjects include the effect of the Holocaust on relations between American Jews and African Americans; the limiting effects of racial and gender attitudes on the potential for meaningful reform; and the lasting repercussions of the tumultuous 1960s.

Provocative, illuminating and sure to raise questions for future study, The Achievement of American Liberalism testifies to a vibrant and vital field of inquiry.

zachomikowany

28 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Jack N. Rakove - Founding America, Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights (2006).jpg

Modern American politicians refer to “the founders” so often that they’re in danger of becoming clichés. But Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail and John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe, and the other authors included in this new collection were a wholly unique—and complex—group of individuals, graced with extraordinary intellectual powers, a profound dedication to their ideals, and a striking ability to articulate those ideals in clear and passionate prose.

This original anthology of their writings, many of them far less familiar to us than they should be, demonstrates the depth of their thinking—and of their disagreements. It covers the full range of events from 1773 to 1789: that is, from the early debates about whether the North American colonies should declare their independence from England, to the ratification of the Constitution and the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights).

Among the documents included are papers from the first and second Continental Congresses, the Articles of Confederation, Washington’s Farewell Address to his armies, and extensive excerpts from the Federalist papers and the Madison–Jefferson correspondence on the Constitution.

zachomikowany

2,7 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Jack N. Rakove - Founding America, Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights (2006).epub

zachomikowany

157 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Harriet Rohmer - Heroes of the Environment, True S tories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Pl anet (2009).jpg

USA Books1 - Harriet Rohmer - Heroes of the Environment, True Stor... of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet 2009.jpg

This inspiring book presents the true stories of 12 people from across North America who have done great things for the environment. Heroes include a teenage girl who figured out how to remove an industrial pollutant from the Ohio River, a Mexican superstar wrestler who works to protect turtles and whales, and a teenage boy from Rhode Island who helped his community and his state develop effective e-waste recycling programs. Plenty of photographs and illustrations bring each compelling story vividly to life.

zachomikowany

4,5 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Harriet Rohmer - Heroes of the Environment, True S tories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Pl anet (2009).pdf

zachomikowany

120 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Jean Morrison - Superior Rendezvous-Place, Fort Wi lliam in the Canadian Fur Trade (2007).jpg

Jean Morrison has written a fascinating and important book, full of drama and colourful historical figures. Rare paintings, drawings, maps and archival photographs complement her impeccable research and lively text. Superior Rendezvous-Place encompasses the French predecessors of Fort William, Native Peoples of the time and the evolution of the fur trade, with an emphasis on the North West Company era.

This most important work concludes with details of the reconstruction of the fort and the development of Old Fort William, one of Ontario's "must see" attractions.

"Jean Morrison is a natural story teller, and hers is an essential historical document in the compelling history of Fort William, once the centre of the North American commercial universe."
- Peter C. Newman, author of Caesars of the Wilderness

"This book is wonderful reading. Jean Morrison's prose is beautiful."
- Carolyn Podruchny, fur trade historian, Newberry Library, Chicago

zachomikowany

14,4 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Jean Morrison - Superior Rendezvous-Place, Fort Wi lliam in the Canadian Fur Trade (2007).pdf

zachomikowany

26 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Kate Chopin, Rachel Adams - The Awakening and Sele cted Short Fiction (2005).jpg

When it first appeared in 1899, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was greeted with cries of outrage. The novel’s frank portrayal of a woman’s emotional, intellectual, and sexual awakening shocked the sensibilities of the time and destroyed the author’s reputation and career. Many years passed before this short, pioneering work was recognized as a major achievement in American literature.

Set in and around New Orleans, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother who, determined to control her own life, flouts convention by moving out of her husband’s house, having an adulterous affair, and becoming an artist.

Beautifully written, with sensuous imagery and vivid local descriptions, The Awakening has lost none of its power to provoke and inspire. Additionally, this edition includes thirteen of Kate Chopin’s magnificent short stories.

zachomikowany

95 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Peter Firstbrook - The Obamas, The Untold Story of an African Family (2011).jpg

On January 20, 2009, a few hundred men, women, and children gathered under trees in the twilight at K’obama, a village on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya. Barack Obama’s rise to the American presidency had captivated people around the world, but members of this gathering took a special pride in the swearing in of America’s first black president, for they were all Obamas, all the president’s direct African family.

In the first in-depth history of the Obama family, Peter Firstbrook recounts a journey that starts in a mud hut by the White Nile and ends seven centuries later in the White House. Interweaving oral history and tribal lore, interviews with Obama family members and other Kenyans, the writings of Kenyan historians, and original genealogical research, Firstbrook sets the fascinating story of the president’s family against the background of Kenya’s rich culture and complex history.

He tells the story of farmers and fishermen, of healers and hunters, of families lost and found, establishing for the first time the early ancestry of the Obamas. From the tribe’s cradleland in southern Sudan, he follows the family generation by generation, tracing the paths of the famous Luo warriors—Obama’s direct ancestors—and vividly illuminating Luo politics, society, and traditions.

Firstbrook also brings to life the impact of English colonization in Africa through the eyes of President Obama’s grandfather Onyango. An ambitious and disciplined man who fought in two world wars, witnessed the bloody Mau Mau insurrection, and saw his country gain independence from white rule, Onyango was also hot-tempered and autocratic: family lore has it that President Obama’s grandmother abandoned the family after Onyango attempted to murder her. And Firstbrook delves into the troubled life of Obama’s father, a promising young man whose aspirations were stymied by post-independence tribal politics and a rash tendency toward self-destruction—two factors that his family believes contributed to his death in 1982. They say it was no accident, as described in the president’s memoirs, but rather a politically motivated hit job.

More than a tale of love and war, hardship and hard-won success, The Obamas reveals a family history—epic in scope yet intimate in feel—that is truly without precedent.

zachomikowany

59 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Stephen L Wasby - Essentials of The American Const itution, The Supreme Court and the Fundamental Law (2001).jpg

USA Books1 - Stephen L Wasby - Essentials of The American Constitu...ution, The Supreme Court and the Fundamental Law 2001.jpg

Constitutional politics is the continued search for equilibrium between grants of power and the limits placed on that power. Essentials of the American Constitution examines five closely integrated components which make up the fundamental law: the Compact, Separation of Powers, Federalism, Representation, and the Bill of Rights. It is the interaction among these components that give the constitution its dynamism, and landmark decisions handed down by the Supreme Court involve two or more of them.This book’s unique approach shows how the components often work together, assisting, explaining, or reinforcing one another. Providing an overview of the fundamental principles of the American Constitution, the author gives a firm foundation for students interested in American Government and Politics, Constitutional Law or Civil Liberties.

zachomikowany

12,7 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Stephen L Wasby - Essentials of The American Const itution, The Supreme Court and the Fundamental Law (2001).pdf

zachomikowany

126 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Osprey - New Vanguard 172 - Lawrence Burr - US Fas t Battleships 1938-91, The Iowa Class (2010).jpg

In 1938, the United States abandoned the constraints imposed by the Washington Teaty and began work on a new class of super-battleships. This book covers the design, construction, and employment of the four Iowa-class battleships, the largest in the American fleet. During World War II, they served as guards for the aircraft carriers and their bombardments provided cover for the numerous landings in the Pacific. At the war’s end, the Japanese signed their surrender on the decks of an Iowa-class battleship, the USS Missouri. After World War II, the ships continued to serve, providing support during Korea, Vietnam, and even the first Gulf War. This book tells the full story of the greatest of the American battleships.

zachomikowany

140 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Christopher N. Koontz - Enduring Voices, Oral Hist ories of the U.S. Army Experience in Afghanistan 2 003-2005 (2008).jpg

USA Books1 - Christopher N. Koontz - Enduring Voices, Oral Histori...he U.S. Army Experience in Afghanistan 2003-2005 2008.jpg

The U.S. Army Center of Military History prepared this anthology of oral histories to document this critical period in the Afghan conflict. It records the memories, perspec¬tives, and opinions of those who planned and implemented the counterinsurgency strat¬egy at multiple echelons of command between 2003 and 2005. The interviews selected for this volume provide, in the words of those who participated in the events, insights into the complex operational environment in Afghanistan and the ways in which the Army adapted and adjusted its strategy and tactics to that environment.

zachomikowany

21,1 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Christopher N. Koontz - Enduring Voices, Oral Hist ories of the U.S. Army Experience in Afghanistan 2 003-2005 (2008).pdf

zachomikowany

129 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Hamid Dabashi - Brown Skin, White Mask (2011).jpg

In this unprecedented study, Hamid Dabashi provides a critical examination of the role that immigrant 'comprador intellectuals' play in facilitating the global domination of American imperialism.In his pioneering book about the relationship between race and colonialism, "Black Skin, White Masks", Frantz Fanon explored the traumatic consequences of the sense of inferiority that colonized people felt, and how this often led them to identify with the ideology of the colonial agency. "Brown Skin, White Masks" picks up where Frantz Fanon left off. Dabashi extends Fanon's insights as they apply to today's world.Dabashi shows how intellectuals who migrate to the West are often used by the imperial power to inform on their home countries. Just as many Iraqi exiles were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, Dabashi demonstrates that this is a common phenomenon, and examines why and how so many immigrant intellectuals help to sustain imperialism.The book radically alters Edward Said's notion of the 'intellectual exile', in order to show the negative impact of intellectual migration. Dabashi examines the ideology of cultural superiority, and provides a passionate account of how these immigrant intellectuals - homeless compradors, and guns for hire - continue to betray any notion of home or country in order to manufacture consent for imperial projects.

zachomikowany

2,9 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Hamid Dabashi - Brown Skin, White Mask (2011).pdf

zachomikowany

101 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Lynn Stout - Cultivating Conscience, How Good Laws Make Good People (2010).jpg

Contemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly--few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop them. In this pathbreaking book, acclaimed law and economics scholar Lynn Stout argues that this focus neglects the crucial role our better impulses could play in society. Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, Stout contends that we should rely on the force of conscience.
Stout makes the compelling case that conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. Drawing from social psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, Stout demonstrates how social cues--instructions from authorities, ideas about others' selfishness and unselfishness, and beliefs about benefits to others--have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how our legal system can use these social cues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish, ethical behavior in many realms, including politics and business. Stout also shows how our current emphasis on self-interest and incentives may have contributed to the catastrophic political missteps and financial scandals of recent memory by encouraging corrupt and selfish actions, and undermining society's collective moral compass.
This book proves that if we care about effective laws and civilized society, the powers of conscience are simply too important for us to ignore.

zachomikowany

18 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

John C. McManus - Grunts, Inside the American Infa ntry Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq (2010).jpg

USA Books1 - John C. McManus - Grunts, Inside the American Infantry...try Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq 2010.jpg

The author of the fine history of the 7th Infantry Regiment returns with another demonstration of his skill at narrating infantry combat. He offers a historical retrospective, contrasting different types of battle in which American “grunts” have been engaged. We have the easy victory on Guam in 1944, against poorly-organized Japanese, and the bloody slugging match against dug-in Japanese on Peleliu. The battle for the German city of Aachen in 1944 features the free and decisive use of superior American firepower, while more recently in Falujah, Iraq political constraints added to our casualties. Similarly, the Marine Combined Action Platoons are contrasted with larger and often less-effective operations. The book is clearly intended as an argument for a strong presence of well-trained infantry operating “up close and personal” with heavier firepower available as support but not substitute. Both readable and persuasive.

zachomikowany

30 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Frederick Douglass, Brent Hayes Edwards - My Bonda ge and My Freedom (2005).jpg

Born a slave, Frederick Douglas educated himself, escaped, and became one of the greatest social leaders in American history. Although usually identified with the monumental Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Douglass produced two additional autobiographies, the second of which he called My Bondage and My Freedom.

A richer, deeper, and far more ambiguous work than the earlier Narrative, My Bondage and My Freedom reveals Douglass’s increased intellectual sophistication and maturity. In the decade that had elapsed since Douglass wrote Narrative, he had broken away from his antislavery mentors, successfully toured England, and established himself as an inspired speaker and writer. With the publication of My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855, Douglass became the country’s foremost spokesman for American blacks—free and enslaved—during the tense and politically charged years preceding the Civil War.

One of the highlights of My Bondage and My Freedom is the appendix, which contains excerpts from several of Douglass’s speeches, including perhaps his most famous, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

zachomikowany

63 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Jeffrey A. Lockwood - Locust, The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that S haped the American Frontier (2005).jpg

USA Books1 - Jeffrey A. Lockwood - Locust, The Devastating Rise and... of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier 2005.jpg

Imagine looking up to see an ominous black cloud on the horizon. Now imagine your growing horror as you watch that cloud reveal itself as an immense, miles-wide swarm of ravenous insects. In Locust, entomologist Jeffrey A. Lockwood reveals the bizarre history of a bug responsible for killing countless settlers on the American plains. First-hand accounts of the Rocky Mountain locust's horrific depredations are reproduced in the book, and Lockwood adds his own vivid reconstructions:
We expect grasshoppers and locusts to consume our gardens and fields, but when these insects begin to feed on fabric and flesh something seems demonically amiss.... Although the settlers may have been astonished by the locusts' voracity, they were appalled by the insects' fierce cannibalism.
Swarms of locusts would touch down like tornadoes on homesteads and farms, stripping away every growing thing and desperately eating other insects in search of much-needed fat and protein. These hordes were thought by many, including the Mormon settlers in Utah, to be divine punishments, or at least signs from above. After describing the effects this insect had on the American frontier, Lockwood delves into the entomologic mystery of the locusts' abrupt disappearance. Had they become extinct? Or gone into hiding in some ecological refuge? When Lockwood abandons history for science, his glee for his subject keeps the book moving, albeit slower than in the first few chapters.

zachomikowany

2,6 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Jeffrey A. Lockwood - Locust, The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that S haped the American Frontier (2005).pdf

zachomikowany

39 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential, Adventure s in the Culinary Underbelly (2008).jpg

When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door.In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded that appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectable shocking banquet that lays out his 25 years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.

From his first oyster in the Gironde to the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, from the restaurants of Tokyo to the drug dealers of the East Village, from the mobsters to the rats, Bourdain's brilliantly written, wild-but-true tales make the belly ache with laughter.

Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years.
CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it."

zachomikowany

28 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Scott Christianson - The Last Gasp, The Rise and F all of the American Gas Chamber (2010).jpg

Investigative journalist Christianson, author of the award-winning With Liberty for Some, charts the 75-year history of gas chamber execution as well as its intersection with eugenics, the Holocaust, and America's ongoing capital punishment debate. Christianson is clear that his focus is the United States, underscoring that the chamber's operation can hardly be described as painless or kind. After the Germans launched the first gas attack during WWI, American scientists and chemical companies—particularly DuPont, which had ties to the German manufacturers that later supplied concentration camps—scrambled to produce their own lethal concoctions. From their earliest incarnations, gas chambers employed various forms of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) pumped into a sealed room where the condemned was strapped to a chair. Despite being developed as a swifter and more painless alternative to death than hanging or electrocution, Christianson describes in graphic detail the numerous botched executions during which death took over 10 agonizing minutes. Though the gas chamber hasn't been used in America since 1999, Christianson makes a chilling argument for its—and the death penalty's—abolition.

zachomikowany

5,8 MB
14 paź 24 19:51

Scott Christianson - The Last Gasp, The Rise and F all of the American Gas Chamber (2010).epub

zachomikowany

97 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Karen Abbott - American Rose, A Nation Laid Bare, The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose (2010).jpg

A Letter from Author Karen Abbott

My grandmother used to tell me stories about growing up during the Great Depression, and she once related a tale about a cousin who saw Gypsy Rose Lee perform in 1935. “She took a full fifteen minutes to peel off a single glove,” the cousin said, “and she was so damned good at it I would’ve gladly given her fifteen more.” This story got me thinking: who was Gypsy Rose Lee? And how did an awkward girl named Louise Hovick become her? I spent three years researching the answer, research that included connecting with Gypsy’s late sister, the actress June Havoc; I was the last person to interview her.
When I arrived at June’s Connecticut farm I found her lying in bed, her hair done up in pert white pigtails. She was ninety-four years old, give or take, and the legs that once danced on stages across the country were now motionless, two nearly imperceptible bumps tucked beneath crisp white sheets. Her eyes were a bold shade of blue and painfully sensitive to light. She told me the musical Gypsy distorted her childhood so thoroughly it was as if “I didn’t own me anymore.” She realized her sister was “screwing me out in public,” and that, in the end, there was no stopping either Gypsy or Gypsy; the play was both her sister’s monument and her best chance for monumental revisionism.
It took another visit for June to share more personal memories: money was Gypsy’s “god,” and she would do anything to anybody, including June, to make more of it. Gypsy did in fact do things, not only to June but also to herself—“terrible” and “awful” and “shocking” things, things beneath her sister’s formidable intellect and keen wit, things that made June believe, to that day, that love (even love fraught with competition and jealousy) never existed between them at all.
I asked and listened, for as much time as June gave me. I asked until her patience wore thin and her eyes watered with the effort to stay open.
“I hope I didn’t upset you today,” I whispered. “That’s not my intention.”
“I know,” June said. Those startling eyes found their focus, settling on mine. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more open about some things… I’m still ashamed for her. I wish they hadn’t happened.”
“Would Gypsy wish the same?” I asked.
“She had no shame.”
A pause, and I said, feebly, “You were a good sister to her.”
A hand tunneled out from the sheet. She coiled long, blade-thin fingers around my wrist.
“I was no sister,” June said. “I was a knot in her life. I was nothing.”
She retracted her hand, gave her eyes permission to close. I kissed her cheek and crept out the bedroom door. I was grateful she let me inside—even on the periphery, even briefly¬—and I suspected she was saving her own questions for the day she reunited with the sister she did profess to love, the one she still called Louise

zachomikowany

88 KB
14 paź 24 19:51

Sam Davis Elliott - Isham G. Harris of Tennessee, Confederate Governor and United States Senator (20 10).jpg

In 1931, when the Nashville Banner conducted a survey to determine the "Greatest Tennesseans" to date, the state's Confederate "War Governor," Isham G. Harris (1818-1897), was tenth on the list, behind such famous Tennesseans as Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. In 1976, however, when the Banner once again conducted the survey, Harris did not appear in even the top twenty-five. The result of fading memories and the death of the generation that knew him, the glaring omission of Harris's name still seemed striking and undeserved. In Isham G. Harris of Tennessee, Sam Davis Elliott offers the first published biography of this overlooked leader, establishing him as the most prominent Tennessean in the Confederacy and a dominating player in nineteenth-century Tennessee politics.
Harris grew up on the frontier in Middle Tennessee, the youngest of a large family. He left home as a teenager, and found and lost a fortune in the boom and bust times of 1830s in Mississippi and West Tennessee. Admitted to the bar in 1841, he enjoyed almost immediate success as an attorney because of his quick intellect, naturally aggressive nature, and native ability to influence people. He launched a political career in 1847 that lasted, with some interruption, for fifty years, having never lost an election. Harris rose to prominence in the 1850s as the leader of the southern rights wing of the Democratic Party, fiercely advocating the right to hold property in slaves. He served in the Tennessee state Senate, as a U.S. congressman, and as governor during the secession crisis, when, Elliott contends, Harris used his political influence and constitutional power to trample on the state constitution to align Tennessee with the Confederacy.
As governor, Harris tirelessly dedicated himself to the Confederate war effort, raising troops and money and establishing a logistical structure and armament industry. When the Federals overran large portions of Middle and West Tennessee in 1862, he attached himself to the headquarters of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. As a volunteer aide, he served each of the army's commanders on nearly every one of its famed battlefields and was deemed a possible successor to Jefferson Davis should the new republic survive.
After the war, Harris went into voluntary exile in Mexico. He returned home in late 1867 and worked behind the scenes to "redeem" Tennessee from Radical rule and eventually became the most famous of the state's Bourbon Democrats. Elected to the U. S. Senate in 1877, he held that seat until his death in 1897. He successfully used the Senate's arcane parliamentary rules to block assertions of Federal power at the expense of states' rights, but advocated imaginative application of Federal power where clearly authorized by the Constitution.
The story of nineteenth-century Tennessee remains incomplete without a thorough understanding of Isham Green Harris. Elliott's exhaustive and entertaining biography provides essential reading for anyone interested in the political and military history of the Volunteer State.

zachomikowany