Dead Certainties: Unwarranted SpeculationsKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2 jun 1992 - 368 pagina's Like his The Embarrassment of Riches and the bestselling Citizens, Simon Schama's latest book is both history and literature of immense stylishness and ambition. But Dead Certainties goes beyond these more conventional histories to address the deeper enigmas that confront a student of the past. In order to do so, Schama reconstructs -- and at times reinvents -- two ambiguous deaths: the first, that of General James Wolfe at the battle of Quebec in 1759; the second, in 1849, that of George Parkman, an eccentric Boston brahmin whose murder by an impecunious Harvard professor in 1849 was a grisly reproach to the moral sanctity of his society. Out of these stories -- with all of their bizarre coincidences and contradictions -- Schama creates a dazzling and supremely vital work of historical imagination. |
Inhoudsopgave
In Command | 21 |
Deep in the Forest | 40 |
On the Heights of Abraham | 66 |
Copyright | |
9 andere gedeelten niet getoond
Overige edities - Alles bekijken
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
Abraham Oakey Hall afternoon asked Attorney Azores Benjamin West better Bigelow body Boston Briggs British brought called Cambridge certainty Chief Justice Clifford counsel court dark daughters dead death defence Doctor door Ephraim Littlefield evidence eyes face father feel fire followed Francis Parkman Friday friends galleries gentlemen George Bemis George Briggs George Parkman George Putnam Governor guilty hand Harriet Harvard Heights of Abraham historian honour imagined James Wolfe janitor John Webster jury kind knew lecture Lemuel Shaw live looked Marshal Tukey Massachusetts Medical College ment Merrick mind morning Mount Auburn Cemetery murder never night Oliver Wendell Holmes painting perhaps person police prisoner Professor Webster Quebec reported Robert Gould Shaw seemed seen Sohier stand Starkweather ster story sure thing tion told trial turned voice walked wall wanted West's wife witness Wolfe Wolfe's