Michael Fellman

The battles of the Civil War become background scenery in this long, sober examination of the mind and personality of Cump Sherman, 19th-century American military icon. William Tecumseh Sherman's father named him after a famous Indian chief. At age nine, after his father died, he was taken into the politically powerful Ewing family of Lancaster, Ohio. He sailed through West Point, married a Ewing daughter, drifted through a mediocre military career and a disastrous business one. He returned to the Army but suffered a near nervous breakdown in the early months of the Civil War. Then, after he and Grant won the Battle of Vicksburg, Sherman transformed himself into the most successful and ruthless American general of his age. He was also an outspoken racist, a compulsive womanizer, an oppressive father, and a man with strongly held antidemocratic political views. He court- martialed a civilian newspaper reporter who had written a viciously unfair article about him. In relating the life of the man best known for his ultradestructive 1864 march through Georgia, Fellman (History/Simon Fraser Univ., Canada; Inside War, not reviewed) concentrates on sketching a psychological portrait rather than on blow-by-blow descriptions of Sherman's military exploits. He uses his voluble subject's many letters, speeches, and writings to burrow deeply into his mind. This leads to several intriguing hypotheses involving the relationship between the fear of failure resulting from Sherman's early early debacles and his later success on the battlefield. Fellman's fixation on Sherman's psyche, however, also results in some facile, largely unconvincing psychological analyses. These include discussions about Sherman's self-love and the contention that Sherman feared exposing himself entirely to himself' because there were energies and conflicts inside of him that were frightening even to himself. A fresh, needed reinterpretation of Sherman the man, but a bit overwritten and sometimes off-base in its psychologizing.

From the moment the battle ended, Gettysburg was hailed as one of the greatest triumphs of the Union army. Celebrations erupted across the North as a grateful people cheered the victory. But Gabor Boritt turns our attention away from the rejoicing millions to the dark mood of the White House - where Lincoln cried in frustration as General Meade let the largest Confederate army escape safely into Virginia. Such unexpected portraits abound in Lincoln's Generals, as a team of distinguished historians probes beyond the popular anecdotes and conventional wisdom to offer a fascinating look at Lincoln's relationship with his commanders. In Lincoln's Generals, Boritt and his fellow contributors examine the interaction between the president and five key generals: McClellan, Hooker, Meade, Sherman, and Grant. In each chapter, the authors provide new insight into this mixed bag of officers and the president's tireless efforts to work with them. Even Lincoln's choice of generals was not as ill-starred as we think, writes Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark E. Neely, Jr.: compared to most Victorian-era heads of state, he had a fine record of selecting commanders (for example, the contemporary British gave us such bywords for incompetence as "the charge of the Light Brigade," while Napoleon III managed to lose the entire French army). But the president's relationship with his commanders in chief was never easy. In these pages, Stephen Sears underscores McClellan's perverse obstinancy as Lincoln tried everything to drive him ahead. Neely sheds new light on the president's relationship with Hooker, arguing that he was wrong to push the general to attack at Chancellorsville. Boritt writes about Lincoln's prickly relationship with the victor of Gettysburg, "old snapping turtle" George Meade. Michael Fellman reveals the political stress between the White House and William T. Sherman, a staunch conservative who did not want blacks in his army but who was crucial to the war effort. And John Y. Simon looks past the legendary camaraderie between Lincoln and Grant to reveal the tensions in their relationship. . Perhaps no other episode has been more pivotal in the nation's history than the Civil War - and yet so much of these massive events turned on a few distinctive personalities. Lincoln's Generals is a brilliant portrait that takes us inside the individual relationships that shaped the course of our most costly war.

With insight and originality, Michael Fellman argues that terrorism, in various forms, has been a constant and driving force in American history. In part, this is due to the nature of American republicanism and Protestant Christianity, which he believes contain a core of moral absolutism and self-righteousness that perpetrators of terrorism use to justify their actions. Fellman also argues that there is an intrinsic relationship between terrorist acts by non-state groups and responses on the part of the state; unlike many observers, he believes that both the action and the reaction constitute terrorism. Fellman's compelling narrative focuses on five key episodes: John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; terrorism during the American Civil War, especially race warfare and guerrilla warfare; the organized "White Line" paramilitary destruction of Reconstruction in Mississippi; the Haymarket Affair and its aftermath; and the Philippine-American war of 1899–1902. In an epilogue, he applies this history to illuminate the Bush-Cheney administration's use of terrorism in the so-called war on terror. In the Name of God and Country demonstrates the centrality of terrorism in shaping America even to this day.

"The Making of Robert E. Lee reveals the flesh-and-blood Lee - not to expose him but to better understand a man who was perhaps the most fervent practitioner of the Southern code of conduct, behind which he camouflaged much of his character.". "With insight into Robert E. Lee's personal and public lives, Michael Fellman humanizes this one-dimensional icon, placing him within history rather than above it. With both detachment and compassion, Fellman probes beneath the surface to show Lee as a deeply conflicted man, one with sometimes surprising views on sexuality, family, religion, and politics, as well as military practice."--BOOK JACKET.