Longstreet

“Varon brilliantly creates the wider context for Longstreet’s career… . [and] the complexity of a brave man whose very ‘legacy would prove to be a battlefield of its own.’” – Brenda Wineapple * The New York Times *“James Longstreet is best known as a talented Confederate military figure and a Lost Cause pariah. Elizabeth Varon provides the first in-depth assessment of his substantial postwar career as a politician, diplomat, and reconciliationist. Her superb book reminds modern readers of Longstreet’s stature, while also illuminating the complexity and volatility of the nation’s racial and sectional politics.” – Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis“Compelling… .[Varon’s] knowledge of the historical context is matched by her balanced appraisal of Longstreet’s attitudes, personal and political.” – Eric Foner * The Atlantic *

Elizabeth R. Varon is Langbourne M. Williams professor of American history at the University of Virginia and a member of the executive council of UVA’s John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History. Varon’s books include Longstreet; Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew; A Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy; and Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War. Her book, Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War, won the 2020 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and was named one of The Wall Street Journal’s best books of 2019.

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