Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T.J. Stiles
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Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T.J. Stiles
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Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryFrom the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, a brilliant biography of Gen. George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times.In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person—capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court-martialed twice in six years). The key to understanding Custer, Stiles writes, is keeping in mind that he lived on a frontier in time. In the Civil War, the West, and many areas overlooked in previous biographies, Custer helped to create modern America, but he could never adapt to it. He freed countless slaves yet rejected new civil rights laws. He proved his heroism but missed the dark reality of war for so many others. A talented combat leader, he struggled as a manager in the West. He tried to make a fortune on Wall Street yet never connected with the new corporate economy. Native Americans fascinated him, but he could not see them as fully human. A popular writer, he remained apart from Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and other rising intellectuals. During Custer’s lifetime, Americans saw their world remade. His admirers saw him as the embodiment of the nation’s gallant youth, of all that they were losing; his detractors despised him for resisting a more complex and promising future. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation in Custer’s tumultuous marriage to his highly educated wife, Libbie; their complicated relationship with Eliza Brown, the forceful black woman who ran their household; as well as his battles and expeditions. It casts surprising new light on a near-mythic American figure, a man both widely known and little understood.
Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T.J. Stiles- Amazon Sales Rank: #3143 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-27
- Released on: 2015-10-27
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.60" h x .50" w x 6.60" l, 1.25 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 608 pages
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of November 2015: As with many American icons, we really don’t know much about General George Armstrong Custer. Born poor in Ohio, educated at West Point, where he barely graduated, Custer’s reputation expanded quickly during the Civil War. He was brave, he could lead, and he possessed that “Custer luck.” We all know where that luck ended. Or do we? T.J. Stiles, who won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer for his biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, illustrates how Custer, who famously extended his military career by fighting in Indian country, “lived on a chronological frontier even more than a geographical one.” He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be able to fight with a sword. But he came of age at the onset of modernity—where “the new order was industrial, corporate, scientific, and legal.” Custer represents something to each of us—whether brave fighter or ruthless Indian killer who got what he deserved—but he was flesh and blood, and he lived a real life that was buoyed by ambition and hope and riddled with contradictions. T.J. Stiles’ writing and research is as much hero here as Custer, and it sets this biography apart from so many others. – Chris Schluep
Review WINNER 2016 - Pulitzer Prize for HistoryFINALIST 2016 - National Book Critics Circle AwardsFINALIST 2016 - California Book AwardFINALIST 2016 - Mark Lynton History PrizeLONGLIST 2016 - Plutarch AwardWINNER 2016 - Western Writers of America Golden Spur AwardWINNER 2016 - William H. Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War BiographyFINALIST 2015 - Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military HistoryBookPage Best Books of 2015St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best of 2015“If anyone could make a reader forget Custer’s last stand, at least for a few hundred pages at a time, it would be T.J. Stiles… Stiles is a serious and accomplished biographer, but he is more than that. He is a skilled writer, with the rare ability to take years of far-ranging research and boil it down until he has a story that is illuminating and, at its best, captivating.” —The New York Times Book Review“Epic, ambitious… [Stiles] scrupulously avoids caricature… Stiles’s accomplishment is to show that, within the context of Custer’s life, the Battle of Little Bighorn really was an epilogue.” —The Wall Street Journal“[This] sympathetic biography attempts to demythologize and reassess a complicated figure… Stiles captures his subject with verve.” —The New Yorker“In this deft portrait, Stiles restores Custer as a three-dimensional figure… [Stiles’s] prodigious knowledge of 19th-century institutions is on display throughout Custer’s Trials. He is able to situate Custer in the shifting culture of the Civil War and its aftermath in a way no other biography has achieved… Stiles’s Custer is life-size.” —The Washington Post“This energetic biography puts emphasis on the years in between Custer’s Civil War heroics and his infamous Last Stand. Stiles is neither sympathetic nor unsympathetic in his treatment of Custer’s profound need for attention.” —The St. Louis Post-Dispatch“Riveting… [Stiles] has given us a different way to look at the flesh-and-blood man and his times.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune"Custer's Trials is exemplary in every way, replete with instances of detailed scholarship and compelling analysis, dense with psychological insight, and written in a tight, adroit style." —The Wichita Eagle "Custer was the product of an America which changed more dramatically during his brief life than at any time in its history, except for the present sorry epoch, and Stiles, who can write, and also research, recounts how those times shaped him and, in the process, demolishes some of the Custer despisers’ (there are many, and I am one) most cherished myths.... Terrific." —Field & Stream"Stiles portrays a complex and deeply flawed man... Stiles' biography is a long, detailed, well-researched but highly readable account." —The Denver Post “Engaging… A teeming portrait of the birth of modern America—and a gripping account of Custer's role in it.” —San Jose Mercury News “A nuanced, complex and convincing portrait of the man.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Rousing… An immersive, emphatic, bloody and very assured book.” —Newsday“A good and meaty biography.” —Christian Science Monitor“T.J. Stiles portrays Custer in the context of his time, and the man who emerges is much more than merely a martyr or a fool…. [Stiles] goes furthest in exploring [Custer’s] contribution to Union victory during the Civil War and the difficulties he faced adjusting to the world that he helped to create.” —The Daily Beast"[Stiles's] biography is thorough, engrossing and fair. Custer is seen as a man wearing many faces, some good, some not. The author has done a commendable job drawing out from other sources to write a balanced account of a misunderstood historical figure. A+ read." —San Francisco Book Review “Spectacular… a satisfying portrait of a complex, controversial military man… Confidently presenting Custer in all his contradictions, Stiles examines the times to make sense of the man—and uses the man to shed light on the times.” —Publishers Weekly *starred review*"Stiles presents a much fuller picture of the tragic figure many of us know... Custer's Trials masterfully adds dimension to his life, helping us better understand the man behind the legend." —BookPage "Stiles doesn’t disappoint with this powerful, provocative biography… A highly recommended modern biography that successfully illuminates the lives of Custer and his family as part of the changing patterns of American society." —Library Journal "A warts-and-all portrait... Stiles digs deep to deliver genuine insight into a man who never adapted to modernity." —Kirkus Reviews“T. J. Stiles has written a marvel of a book—the best life of Custer right up to the moment he marched the 7th Cavalry out of Fort Abraham Lincoln while the band played ‘The Girl I Left Behind,’ on their way to whip the Indians.” —Thomas Powers, author of The Killing of Crazy Horse “This magnificent biography lifts the shroud of myth that has long hovered over Custer. Well-written, exhaustively researched, and full of fresh insights, it does a superb job of re-creating not only his life but even more the world in which he lived. Building on the work of previous writers, Stiles surpasses them all with his breadth of detail and depth of analysis.” —Maury Klein, author, Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War “T.J. Stiles has done it again. With this searching, memorable portrait of George Armstrong Custer, Stiles recaptures the complexities of a man whom posterity has been content to caricature. Until now, in this wonderful book.” —Jon Meacham, author of Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George H. W. Bush “T. J. Stiles has written another splendid book. He portrays a real Custer, full of flaws but possessed of outstanding combat skills and leadership. This biography easily overshadows its many predecessors, offering new facts and interpretations as well as a wonderful read.” —Robert Utley, author of Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier“Despite the numerous works on Custer, this thoroughly researched and riveting book is new. It is the first to interpret him as a representative of his times.” —Shirley Leckie Reed, author of Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth “George A. Custer has proven an enduring metaphor for the American West, an ‘exaggerated American’ seen as flamboyant military hero, icon of national expansion, or doomed oppressor of Native Americans. More even than his compelling portrait of this central figure of American history, T. J. Stiles brilliantly examines Custer within transforming national events—civil war, slavery’s end, and economic and social modernization that privileged the powerful under guise of democratic triumph—proving yet again why he is this generation’s finest biographer.” —Christopher Phillips, author of The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border"In this definitive reconsideration of an icon, Stiles reminds us why Custer remains such a fascinating fixture in our national consciousness: To understand Custer is to understand a significant sequence in the American DNA.” —Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder and In the Kingdom of Ice
About the Author 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. Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History. A member of the Society of American Historians and a former Guggenheim fellow, Stiles lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and two children.
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Most helpful customer reviews
62 of 68 people found the following review helpful. well written account of the life and times of Custer By Liz I throughly enjoyed this biography of George Armstrong Custer. Having focused on Civil War history in college and grad school most of my prior learning on Custer pertained to his role in that conflict. This biography encompasses his life from West Point to The Battle of Little Bighorn and includes so much more than just his military service. Stiles details both the major events and important relationships in Custer's life but also the more minor events and personal happenings that shaped the man he became and, ultimately, the choices he is both famous as well as notorious for.The preface is not to be skipped. It places Custer in the context of our ever changing American lexicon. There's so much to learn about Custer. Many aspects of Custer's life can and have been dissected to the extreme. Carefully reading the preface and going back and skimming it a few times during the book allowed me to see the forest while reading about the trees.The detail Stiles includes is incredible. He paints the picture of Custer the man, not just Custer the cadet or young general or infamous leader. With a legend like Custer it's unique to see him portrayed as a teenage troublemaker, a romantic with a wandering eye, and a man grappling with his career and the politics of the day. The writing is objective, almost to a fault. Everything presented is matter of fact and without injections of opinion. I like this. It's refreshing to read a biography with both mass appeal and an academic air.As a woman and wife I found the information on Elizabeth Bacon particularly interesting. Stiles writes about her early life as well as the back and fourth courtship between her and Armstrong. Her role in Custer's life is included and discussed throughout the book. She was a fascinating woman and although a volume could be written on her alone her life story makes the most sense as an inclusion in a biography of her husband.Although I'm not able to review the pictures or maps as they are not included in the pre publication copy I've gone over the lists of what will be included and I feel they will be a nice addition to the book. As I'm reading I find myself stopping to look up photographs and maps to clarify what I'm reading about and help me to more fully understand what Stiles is discussing. The photos are not just of Custer but also include include images such as battle maps, other generals, Custer's wife Elizabeth, campaign posters, the grounds of West Point as they were around 1860, and scenes of the Great Plains in the 1870's.If I had to come up with something I don't like about the book it would have to be the formatting of the footnotes. There are around 80 pages of notes as a separate section after the main part of the book but before the index. As an avid footnote reader I was endlessly flipping back and fourth from the text to the notes and back again. If you're not one to read the footnotes much this will likely improve the book for you but if you normally like to read or at least glance at the footnotes to see what they're about know it will be a minor inconvenience to do so.Custer's Trials is a fascinating biography of an American legend. The writing, while lengthy at 450 pages of text, is surprisingly succinct. More than just the story of a man's life it's a history of the country he served and the politics of reconstruction era America. I enjoyed the book for the straightforward writing and little known yet interesting details. This is a book that will appeal to history buffs, students of the Civil War and late 19th century American history, and readers of military or historical biographies.
35 of 39 people found the following review helpful. What he wished to be By wogan This book, in many ways answers numerous questions on the conundrum of Custer’s life and especially his psyche. T.J.Stiles is correct in describing the fact that Custer’s death defined his life. The contents cover a bit of his background, but begin with West Point and ends with the 7th Calvary marching out of sight.Stiles is adept at his insights, beginning with his preface and ending with over 100 pages of notes, and bibliography. Earlier decades presented Custer as a hero. These pages also change the angle on which Custer is viewed.The reader is presented with Custer’s court-martial, the first of 2 he faced, which seemingly should have held back his promotion expectations. The history that follows is detailed – the Civil War and the years between that and Little Bighorn. It is a substantial history book in more ways than one; but those who appreciate reading history will find this enjoyable.There are often 2 accounts in the history records – what Custer wrote and what others reported or said concerning his fabrications, his foibles, his bravery and his glory, financial dealings, gambling and manipulations. Both are presented. It is not a pretty picture overall, including Custer’s testimony before Congress, where he had no personal knowledge of the subject he was swearing to.It is also an education regarding the Civil War, describing the type of ammunition used in cannons for example. Of equal interest are the details about his wife Libbie and the strengths of Grant’s first term in office.The Battle of Little Bighorn is not really covered except in the epilogue with the Court of Inquiry. There are 4 pages regarding his wife, Libbie after his death. One wishes there was a bit more detail concerning her actions then. Still this is an engrossing book about Armstrong Custer and the times he lived in.
28 of 33 people found the following review helpful. Excellent Biography of General George Armstrong Custer By C. Baker This is an extraordinary biography of General George Armstrong Custer. I won’t be surprised to see it win many awards.General Custer is best known, and by some almost entirely known, for Custer’s Last Stand where he and the portion of the U.S. 7th Calvary regiment he was leading were lured into a trap and killed to a man by Sitting Bull and the Sioux Indians. This tragic event led to besmirching of Custer’s name with all the negative qualities of his personality and leadership coming to the fore. While certainly flawed in many ways, Custer was much deeper and more nuanced than the standard narrative of his life. T.J. Stiles fills that gap admirably.Custer grew up relatively poor, the son of a blacksmith in Monroe, Michigan. Stiles does not go into much detail on his early life, although he was a clearly a good politician at an early age as he wrangled a nomination to the military academy West Point – where he finished at the bottom of his class. And his contrarian nature and lack of respect for the chain of command and rules showed at West Point as he broke the record for demerits and was even court martialed but finagled his way out of punishment.Given the outbreak of the Civil War, West Point cut the five year program to four and Custer was able to join the regular Union army but soon entered the volunteer army where he was more likely to earn higher rank. He soon found himself on General George B. McClellan’s staff and was a worshiper and friend of McClellan’s for the rest of his life, despite some of the trouble that could potentially cause him after McClellan loss favor with the government and lost to Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election of 1864.What many don’t realize about Custer is that he was a genuine Civil War hero. You don’t often hear much of Custer’s exploits in today’s popular accounts of the Civil War because the cavalry was ancillary to the infantry units engaged in battle. But he saw frequent close quarter combat, often hand-to-hand combat, and was known for his bravery, excellent battlefield leadership, and willingness to be on the front lines. At the time he was the darling of the press and earned a nationwide reputation as a gallant Civil War combat hero. It was almost as if Custer was born to be on the battlefield because that is where he was truly successful.But what Custer was not good at is being in a leadership position in non-combat duties where the chain of command, administrative duties, and keeping up morale of troops were important. After the Civil War commanding a cavalry unit in Reconstruction Texas he was reviled by his men for arbitrary punishments, and reviled by some in the chain of command for not doing his job. He was clearly sympatric to Southerners and did little to stop racial violence against the freed slaves on many of his stops. Whether through boredom, a disdain for his duties to police Southern racists trying to thwart the federal government’s imposition of rights for former slaves, or personal motivations, he shirked his duties in these commands.Eventually Custer was sent out West to fight recalcitrant Indians. While there were many controversies over his treatment of soldiers, and in one instance court martialed for leaving his duties to visit his wife in which he was suspended from his duties for one year, eventually he regained his post and led a few successful battles with the Indian tribes (although not without some controversy).Eventually he either made crucial mistakes, or as Stiles points out, the men in his command failed him, and he and the entire unit he was leading were killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn by Sioux Indians lead by Sitting Bull. Stiles does not go into great depth on the battle but does point out that his subordinates certainly failed him. It is unclear whether he made grave tactical areas that found his troop surround by an unusually superior force, whether the lack of action by his subordinates were at fault, or a combination of both.A few other excellent aspects of this biography are his dissecting the personality of Custer, both his virtues and his faults, which were many. It also serves as a mini-biography of his wife Elizabeth Bacon Custer, and his long time cook/house servant Eliza Brown. Both are fascinating in their own right.I highly recommend this biography.
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