Writer and Historian T.J. Stiles
Reviews & AwardsA New York Times Book Review
Notable Book of 2002 "Stiles disagrees—vigorously, eloquently, persuasively—[with] one of the pervasive myths of American folklore ... that Jesse James was a home-grown Robin Hood," writes James M. McPherson in The New York Review of Books. "After reading this biography ... no one can doubt that the driving force of Jesse James's career was persistent Confederate ideology and loyalty." McPherson's assessment goes to the heart of what sets this book apart: More than merely detailing Jesse James's life, it seeks to explain him. It is both an intimate, probing biography of an elusive, dramatic figure, and a sweeping new look at his times. Ranging from the 1840s through the 1880s, Stiles intricately weaves together a vast tapestry that explains Jesse James's personality and larger significance as never before. In Stiles's account, society, politics, and economics--gunfights, robberies, and escapes--fiercely held beliefs and psychological compulsions--all piece together to reveal a Jesse James who was both a criminal, and something far greater: A man who used violence and his own notoriety to promote the cause of former Confederates in politics and culture after the Civil War. Honors and Awards: • Winner of the English Speaking Union's Ambassador Book Award for Biography • Winner of the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship • Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography • Named one of the 5 best biographies of the year by the London Sunday Times • A New York Times Notable Book • An American Library Association Notable Book • One of the New York Public Library's 25 Books to Remember for 2002 • Named a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Bookpage, and the London Independent • Winner of the John Newman Edwards Award from the Friends of the James Farm and the Perry Award from the James-Younger Gang New York Times Book Review
(Cover Review), 10/27/02 By Richard E. Nicholls "So carefully researched, persuasive, and illuminating that it is likely to reshape permanently our understanding of its subject's life and times. James has become far more human, more complex, and less admirable. Stiles works on a large canvas, and his descriptions of the events leading up to the Civil War in the West, the horrific guerrilla campaigns in Kansas and Missouri during the war and the complex political struggles after the war are clear and vivid. His portrait of the more visionary aspects of Reconstruction and the destruction of the hopes of black Americans is restrained and moving.... Stiles forcefully sets James in the context of his times, firmly identifying him as a violent and effective Confederate partisan.... Stiles has developed considerable skills as a researcher, and he employs them quite impressively here.... [A] provocative, heavily revisionist biographical study." Larry McMurtry, The New Republic, 10/14/02
"[Carries] the reader scrupulously through Jesse James's violent, violent life. . . . When Stiles, in his subtitle, calls Jesse James the 'last rebel of the Civil War,' he correctly defines the theme that ruled Jesse's life. From the age of fifteen on, he saw himself as a Confederate; he always looked South." Salon.com, 10/15/02
By Allen Barra "Perhaps the finest book ever written about this American legend.... Jesse James eschews the usual trappings of the outlaw-buff variety.... Which is not to say that Stiles hasn't discovered new sources--or at least rediscovered old, forgotten sources. Stiles's interpretation of James's life and legend isn't revisionist; in many ways it's an old-fashioned biography that treats its subject with more reverence that the countless tomes written by Jesse's apologists.... Peeling back myth after myth, Stiles finally arrives at the reason why Jesse James, and not his more experienced brother Frank or associate Cole Younger, was singled out by history to symbolize an era. And the reason, interestingly enough, turns out to be Jesse himself.... James was the first American criminal to be obsessed with his own public image." Albert Castel, Missouri Historical Review, 04/04
"With its publication by the University of Missouri Press in 1966, William A. Settle, Jr.'s Jesse James Was His Name became the first scholarly study of its subject and remained the best one until the appearance of the book here reviewed. Author T.J. Stiles . . . displays a high level of literary and analytical skill. The result is a superb word-portrait of Jesse James, his crimes, and his times—one that is broad, yet deep in its scope, factually sound, perceptive in its judgments, and interesting, even entertaining, to read. . . . Stiles's Jesse James will not be the last book about the legendary outlaw, but it will be a very hard one to beat." The Economist, 10/5/02
"In this excellent account, T.J. Stiles shows James to be a southerner, not a westerner; a Confederate, not a cowboy.... Stiles masterfully strips James bare." John Mack Faragher, Yale University, in the Raleigh News & Observer, 10/13/02
"Jesse James was a terrorist. That is the powerful argument of historian T.J. Stiles in his important new biography of a man more familiarly known to Americans as the Robin Hood of the West.... Jesse James, he insists, was a highly intelligent, cold-blooded political assassin. And his story is not about the West, but the South. He used violent means to pursue political ends--the establishment of white supremacy in post-Civil War Missouri and the greater South.... Stiles has written a wonderful life and times." Eric Foner, Los Angeles Times Book Review, 9/22/02
"More than any previous writer, he places the emergence of James as a larger-than-life figure, a hero in the eyes of Missouri's ex-Confederate Democrats, in the context of the divisive politics of Reconstruction. For a time, radical Republicans controlled the state. They enhanced the rights of the emancipated slaves and imposed loyalty oaths to keep ex-Confederates from power. Democrats, who soon regained power in Missouri, were themselves divided between Unionists and former supporters of the Confederacy....Stiles has combed a wealth of contemporary sources and imbues this story with the drama it deserves." Michael Fellman, Journal of American History, 3/05
Michael Fellman's Inside War remains the single most significant scholarly work dedicated to the guerrilla conflict in Missouri during the Civil War. Click on the link above to read his full review of Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, and an essay by T.J. Stiles on the issues it raises. Washington Post Book World, 10/ By Jay Winik "Elegantly rendered and compelling.... In Stiles's rendering, this notorious rebel is less a Wild West bandit or frontier Robin Hood than a 'foul-mouthed killer' and a resurgent ex-Confederate ... who never accepted the peace of Appomattox." Bookpage, 1/03
"Offering a fresh perspective on a folk hero, Stiles situates the storied gunslinger and his followers in the context of the Reconstructionist South, depicting the James gang as a posse with a purpose—to maintain a slave-holding society. With its exciting accounts of bushwhacking, banditry and brutality, Stiles' book was one of the year's best biographies, an invaluable re-evaluation of the man and his myth." |
 Cover Review, New York Times Book Review, October 27, 2002  T.J. Stiles (center) at the English Speaking Union's presentation of the Ambassador Book Awards Quick List: Reviews of Jesse James U.S. Reviews Sunday Book Reviews: -- New York Times Book Review, Richard E. Nicholls (cover review): 10/ -- Los Angeles Times, Eric Foner: 9/ -- Washington Post Book World, Jay Winik: 10/ Magazines and Journals: -- The New Republic, Larry McMurtry: 10/ -- The Economist: 10/ -- The New Yorker: 9/ -- Salon.com, Allen Barra: 10/ -- The Weekly Standard: 11/ -- Wilson Quarterly: Autumn 02 -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review): 6/ -- Booklist: 8/ -- Library Journal: 7/ -- Publishers Weekly: 6/ -- Bookpage: 9/ -- Book: 10/ -- Bloomsbury Review: 1-2/ -- New York Review of Books, James McPherson: 2/ -- Choice: 4/ -- Journalism History: Spring 2003 -- Arkansas Historical Quarterly: Autumn 2003 -- Missouri Historical Review, Albert Castel, 04/ Daily Newspaper Reviews: -- New York Times, Janet Maslin: 10/ -- Boston Globe: 11/ -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel: 9/ -- Chicago Sun-Times: 9/ -- Kansas City Star: 9/ -- Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: 9/ -- St. Petersburg Times: 9/ -- Dallas Morning News: 9/ -- Minneapolis Star-Tribune: 9/ -- Denver Post: 9/ -- San Diego Union-Tribune: 9/ -- Miami Herald: 9/ -- Maine Times Record: 10/ -- Charlotte Observer: 10/ -- St. Paul Pioneer Press: 10/ -- Fort Worth Morning Star-Telegram: 10/ -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 10/ -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: 10/ -- Raleigh News & Observer, John Mack Fargher: 10/ -- Houston Chronicle: 10/ -- International Herald Tribune: 10/ -- New York Daily News: 10/ -- St. Louis Riverfront Times: 10/ -- Janesville Gazette: 10/ -- Arizona Republic: 11/ -- Winston-Salem Journal: 11/ -- St. Cloud Times: 11/ -- Nashville City Paper: 11/ -- Providence Journal: 11/ -- Flint Journal: 11/ -- Richmond Times-Dispatch: 11/ -- Washington City Paper: 12/ -- Virginia Beach Port Folio Weekly: 12/ -- Hartford Courant: 12/ -- Cleveland Plain Dealer: 12/ -- Albany Times Union: 1/ -- Ashville Citizen-Times: 1/ -- Tuscon Citizen: 1/ -- Roanoke Times & World News: 1/ -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 2/ -- Palm Beach News: 3/ -- Smoky Mountain News: 6/ News Organizations: -- CNN.com: 11/ -- MSNBC.com: 11/ -- CBS "Sunday Morning": 9/ U.K. and Irish Reviews Print Reviews: -- Scotsman, Fordyce Maxwell: 12/ -- Glasgow Herald, Hugh MacDonald: 12/ -- Scotland on Sunday, Gerard DeGroot: 12/ -- Sunday Telegraph, Paul Johnson: 12/ -- Observer, Roy Hattersley: 12/ -- Telegraph, John Lanchester: 1/ -- Dublin Sunday Business Post: 1/ -- Sunday Times, Christopher Silvester: 1/ -- Independent on Sunday, Mark Simpson: 1/ -- Independent, Michael Glover: 1/ -- Spectator, Patrick Skene Catling: 1/ -- Literary Review, William Palmer, 2/ -- Irish Times, Brian Fallon: 2/ -- Times Literary Supplement, Andrew Rosenheim, 2/ -- Mail on Sunday, Bernard Cornwell: 2/ -- BBC History, Frank McLynn (Book of the Month): 3/ -- Contemporary Review: 5/ -- London Review of Books, Richard White: 6/ Broadcast Reviews: -- "Saturday Review," BBC Radio 4: 1/ |
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