Clouds of Glory
The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Bestseller
"Lively, approachable, and captivating. Like Lee himself, everything about Clouds of Glory is on a grand scale." —Boston Globe
Michael Korda, the acclaimed biographer of Ulysses S. Grant and the bestsellers Ike and Hero, offers a brilliant, balanced, single-volume biography of Robert E. Lee, the first major study in a generation
Korda paints a vivid and admiring portrait of Lee as a general and a devoted family man who, though he disliked slavery and was not in favor of secession, turned down command of the Union army in 1861 because he could not "draw his sword" against his own children, his neighbors, and his beloved Virginia. He was surely America's preeminent military leader, as calm, dignified, and commanding a presence in defeat as he was in victory. Lee's reputation has only grown in the 150 years since the Civil War, and Korda covers in groundbreaking detail all of Lee's battles and traces the making of a great man's undeniable reputation on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, positioning him finally as the symbolic martyr-hero of the Southern Cause.
Clouds of Glory features dozens of stunning illustrations, some never before seen, including eight pages of color images, sixteen pages of black-and-white images, and nearly fifty battle maps.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this exhaustive study, former Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief Korda (Ulysses S. Grant) examines the life of Robert E. Lee from start to finish, illuminating not just the man, but his extended family and the society which produced him. While Korda's treatment verges on hero worship, he explores Lee's qualities and contradictions thoroughly, approaching him first and foremost as a state patriot, loyal to Virginia before any other cause. He further presents Lee as a military genius, a brilliant engineer (Lee re-channeled the Mississippi River near St. Louis), a spiritual descendant of George Washington, an embodiment of Napoleonic tactics, and a living legend in his own time. History has supported most of these claims; Korda backs up the rest with an accessible and authoritative account of Lee's career. Naturally, while Lee's schooling and early service are covered, the bulk of this book is reserved for the events of the Civil War. The size of this tome is intimidating but fitting, given its subject: Lee, the famed American general whose legend still looms long after the end of the Civil War. If not the gold standard for Lee biographies, this is a superbly engaging offering.
