Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian Holden Reid
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 604816
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 271
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 1591025850
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.73092
EAN: 9781591025856
ASIN: 1591025850
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
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Condition: Brand New - Direct From Distributor - Light Shelf Wear - No Remainder Mark
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Product Description
One of the most impressive monuments to an American military hero is found in Richmond, Virginia. Weighing twelve tons and standing almost sixty-two feet high, this great marble statue depicts General Robert E Lee on horseback. It projects an air of defiance as well as celebration, implying that, despite the tragic outcome of the Civil War for the South, this general was not defeated. By the time this monumental icon was unveiled in 1890, twenty years after Lee's death, the apotheosis of the great Confederate leader's life and career was well underway. He came to symbolise the great lost cause - the unfulfilled, idealised achievements that were central to the romanticised imagery that quickly enveloped the Old South after the war.In this in-depth examination of the career of General Robert E Lee, noted historian Brian Holden Reid looks beyond the legend to arrive at an objective assessment of the man and his military career. Holden Reid argues that Lee's qualities as a general do not require any exaggeration or embellishment. Tracing the military campaigns of the Civil War, he shows that Lee's short period of field command, just under three years, was marked by imagination, decisiveness, stamina, and a determination to win the war against the better-equipped union army, rather than just avoid losing it. Some historians have criticised Lee's offensive strategy as an error that became ultimately self-defeating.By contrast, Holden Reid asserts that it was the only realistic way for the Confederacy to win its independence. Nonetheless, he acknowledges that Lee exhibited occasional overconfidence, sometimes underestimated his enemy, and failed to develop his staff in any modern sense. As a British historian, Holden Reid brings a fresh, detached eye to his evaluation of General Lee, and in the end he presents an authoritative and balanced assessment of a great American commander. Marked by clarity of style and filled with fascinating historical details, this new reconsideration of a legendary southern general will be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of Civil War enthusiasts as well as students and scholars of American history and military history.
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 Gen Lee - Civil war September 12, 2008
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
General Lee was a trator to this country and his training, and he would have replaced the Black-American slaves with the Irish serfs of Europe, according to Elizabeth B. Pryor, in her study of Lee, in Reading The Man. Please only recommend historal facts to me, and not some idealized opinion. Lee was a West Point trained soldier, and he selected personal comfort and convience over duty. Am I to believe that Ms. Pryor is incorrect?
Icon...Lee September 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
the author is a good writer, entertaining with an obvious wealth of knowledge of the subject. I couldn't imagine how the author could get a picture of Lee into that small book when it took Freeman four volumes, but it was well worth the purchase, I would highly recommend it.
 A New Study of Robert E. Lee April 13, 2006
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
It is easy to overlook the many contributions that non-Americans have made to the study of the American Civil War. Brian Holden Reid's outstanding study "Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation" brings an informed, fresh and balanced perspective to bear upon the Confederacy's greatest general. Reid is Professor of American History and Military Institutions and Head of the Department of War Studies at Kings College, London. He has taught military strategy and tactics and written extensively about America's Civil War.
Any new study of Lee must work on two levels. First, of course, it must examine Lee himself, his life, his career, and his generalship. Second, any study must come to terms with the extensive writing and radically shifting perspectives about Lee over the years. Following the Civil War, Lee quickly became an icon to Southern partisans in the "Lost Cause" tradition. His character and success, for a time, against long military odds soon elevated Lee into a figure respected and revered by many Americans, north and south. Then, in mid-20th Century a reaction set in against Lee, questioning some of the mythology that had grown around him and challenging his agressive conduct of the War, his focus on the Eastern theater, his alleged lack of broad strategic vision, and the high casualty rate to which he subjected the Army of Northern Virginia, among other things. The reasons underlying the reassessment were complex. They included correcting an overly iconic and uncritical account, the changing perspective with which Americans viewed the Civil War, and a general and, I think, unhappy tendency to debunk and to criticise important historical figures.
In clear, elegant prose, Reid examines Lee and Lee historiography. Although Reid avoids hero worship, he clearly admires greatly Robert E. Lee as a person and as a general. He finds that much, but not all, of the traditional picture of Lee has merit: he was an imaginative, agressive, savvy, and gifted commander who, importantly, inspired the love and the trust of his men. He fought and won many battles against long odds and prolonged the life of the Confederacy, giving it its best chance to achieve independence. Reid is far from uncritical as he points to flaws in, among other things, the command structure of Lee's army, the commander's frequent over-confidence, his tendency to overdelegate to subordinates, his conduct of the Battle of Gettysburg, and the failure to make the most of his opportunites in battles such as Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredricksburg, and Chancellorsville. For all these faults, Lee emerges in this study as a remarkable, charismatic commander whom Reid believes is properly regarded as one of the greatest in history.
The book opens with a chapter on Lee the icon with a summary of how historians of the "Lost Cause" school have viewed him, under the influence of the writings of Confederate General Jubal Early. The book then discusses Lee's pre-Civil War career, focusing on his service in Mexico, but gathers force in its consideration of Lee's three-year career as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee's assumption of command in June, 1862, and the battles for which he is famous -- Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness Campaign, Petersburg, and Appatomatox, are discussed clearly and with sufficient detail. Reid keeps his and the reader's focus on the main themes of his study: showing Lee's greatness as a leader but his shortcomings as well.
In common with most books about Lee, his military exploits are discussed in detail but we see little of his inmost thoughts and feelings. Lee was a highly reserved individual. I would have also liked more emphasis on Lee's pre-Civil War career and, particularly, a fuller discussion of Lee's life and career as President of Washington University following the Civil War. The book includes some basic maps of the key theatres of Lee's operations -- placed at the beginning of the book to avoid cluttering the text -- a good, basic bibliography, and no footnotes.
Reid has written an excellent study of a great commander which argues convincingly that Lee deserves most of the esteem that he has traditionally received. This book will appeal to serious students of the Civil War.
Robin Friedman
A View from an Outsider May 22, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
At the end of the American Civil War Robert E. Lee had only five years to live. The heart problems that caused him to spend the battle of the North Anna River in an ambulance killed him. ==In the years following his reputation as a battlefield leader was heavily promoted by writers lamenting the lost cause of Southern independence. These included not only Southerners but Northernors as well.
In this book Brian Holden Reid, Professor of American History at King's College London, writes from the vantage point of a disinterested outsider to argue that Lee was one of the great commanders of all time. He does not claim that Lee didn't have faults. Everyone does, but that the overall generalship of General Lee ranks him among the best.
The American Civil War took place at a transition point in military affairs. The war before (Mexico, 1843) and the war that followed (World War I). The author contends that Lee was among the first of the modern generals. If the armies had listened to him during World War I, it probably wouldn't have turned into the mess that it was.
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