Kirjahaku

Throughout our nation's history, the religious beliefs of America's founders have been contested and misunderstood. Did our founders advocate Christianity or atheism? In The Faiths of Our Fathers, widely acclaimed historian Alf J. Mapp, Jr. cuts through the historical uncertainty to accurately portray the religious beliefs of eleven of America's founding fathers, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. He discovers men with religious beliefs as diverse as their political opinions. These profiles shed light on not only the lives and times of the revolutionary generation but also the role of religion in public life throughout American history.

This groundbreaking biography has been universally acclaimed as a landmark work on Thomas Jefferson's early and mature years. Mapp follows Jefferson from his birth in 1743 through the American Revolution and up until his inauguration as President of the United States in 1801. Along the way we rediscover Jefferson the student at William and Mary, the Virginia politician, and the foreign diplomat. In these pages, Mapp sheds new light on Jefferson's career and private life. The portrait is rich and full of a living complexity that defies the simple sketches often offered by those who would either canonize or demonize this reluctant founding father.

A monumental reassessment of Jefferson's character and impact... —Booklist

The passion of Robert E. Lee and the puritan streak in cavalier J. E. B. Stuart are only two of the surprises in Alf J. Mapp Jr.'s highly regarded psychological analysis of Confederate military and political leaders. In this beautifully written book, Mapp also brings to life the defensively genteel Jefferson Davis, the paradoxically bold retreater Joseph E. Johnston, the amazingly transformed "Stonewall" Jackson, and the mysterious and astonishingly durable Judah P. Benjamin. Mapp's first-rate scholarship, fresh insights, and exciting prose have made Frock Coats and Epaulets essential reading for generations of historians and readers interested in the Civil War. Revised and with a new introduction and updated bibliography, Mapp's classic study of the men who led the Confederate rebellion against the United States will appeal to a whole new generation of Americans.

In this intriguing book, best-selling author Alf Mapp, Jr. explores three periods in Western history that exploded with creativity: Elizabethan England, Renaissance Florence, and America's founding. What enabled these societies to make staggering jumps in scientific knowledge, develop new political structures, or create timeless works of art?

King Alfred. Everybody knows that he is called “the Great,” but few remember why. Forgetfulness is strange, for few men have led lives so full of physical, mental, and spiritual adventure, or influenced in so many ways the lives of people in every part of the globe. The Golden Dragon is his fascinating and moving story, told afresh with the aid of recent archaeological evidence and research in four languages. Alfred’s achievements have melted cynicism. Gibbon called him “the greatest of English kings”; Hume, “the greatest man in history.” Voltaire declared, “I know not whether there has ever been a man on earth worthier of posterity’s respect.” When his kingdom was reduced to thirty acres, he fought back with such courage and genius that he expelled the Viking invaders and made possible the saving of Western civilization. His list of accomplishments is amazing: transcendent diplomat, Europe’s greatest naval designer, notable architect, law giver, founder of the oldest literary tradition in the Occident, originator of a system of public education, and producer of translations that have endured a thousand years. The author’s research led him to the conclusion that the ninth-century English kin was the superior of Charlemagne in almost every respect, and indeed was one of the greatest geniuses Western civilization has ever produced. Alfred’s courage, faith, and temperance are enduring examples for modern men.