Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters

Elizabeth Brown Pryor

may 2007 · Distribuido por Penguin

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“Pryor’s biography helps part with a lot of stupid out there about Lee – chiefly, that he was, somehow, ‘anti-slavery.’” – Ta-Nehisi Coates, theatlantic.com

An “unorthodox, critical, and engaging biography” (Boston Globe) – Winner of The Lincoln Prize

Robert E. Lee is remembered by history as a tragic figure, stoic and brave but distant and enigmatic. Using dozens of previously unpublished letters as departure points, Pryor produces a stunning personal account of Lee's military ability, shedding new light on every aspect of the complex and contradictory general's life story. Explained for the first time in the context of the young United States's tumultuous societal developments, Lee's actions reveal a man forced to play a leading role in the formation of the nation at the cost of his private happiness.

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Elizabeth Brown Pryor (1951–2015) combined careers as an award-winning historian and a senior diplomat in the American Foreign Service. She was the author of the biography Clara Barton: Professional Angel, considered the authoritative work on the founder of the American Red Cross, and Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, which won the 2008 Lincoln Prize, the 2007 Jefferson Davis Award, the 2008 Richard B. Harwell Book Award, and the 2007 Richard S. Slatten Award for Excellence in Virginia Biography. Her final book, Six Encounters With Lincoln:  A President Confronts Democracy and Its Demons, was published posthumously in February 2017.