Dead Certainties: (Unwarranted Speculations)

Dead Certainties: (Unwarranted Speculations)

by SimonSchama (Author)

Synopsis

On 13 September 1759, General James Wolfe, having led the British troops up the St Lawrence to victory in the Battle of Quebec, died on the Heights of Abraham. Schama examines this death, and how Wolfe was made to die again - through the spectacular painting by Benjamin West, and through the writings of the 19th-century historian Francis Parkman. Schama's second death concerns Parkman's uncle, George Parkman of Harvard Medical College, who disappeared in 1849 in mysterious circumstances and who was rumoured to have been murdered by a colleague. Through these incidents, Schama sheds light on the writing of history, the history of history, and the relationship of 'story' to 'history'.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Edition: 2nd edition
Publisher: Granta Books
Published: 04 Apr 2013

ISBN 10: 1847087329
ISBN 13: 9781847087324
Book Overview: Simon Schama, the author of Landscape and Memory and Citizens, sets out to tell the history of two certainties, of two deaths. In discussing the 'speculations' surrounding them, he finds himself involved in a history he cannot classify - the unpredictable history of stories

Author Bio
SIMON SCHAMA is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University and the prize-winning author of fourteen books, which have been translated into twenty languages. They include The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age; Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution; Landscape and Memory; Rembrandt's Eyes; the History of Britain trilogy; and Rough Crossings, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has written widely on music, art, politics and food for the Guardian, Vogue and the New Yorker. His award-winning television work as writer and presenter for the BBC stretches over two decades and includes the fifteen-part A History of Britain, the eight-part, Emmy-winning Power of Art and The American Future: A History.