description: Like his The Embarrassment of Riches and the bestselling Citizens , Simon Schama's latest book is both history and literature of immense stylishness and ambition. But Dead Certainties goes beyond these more conventional histories to address the deeper enigmas that confront a student of the past. In order to do so, Schama reconstructs -- and at times reinvents -- two ambiguous the first, that of General James Wolfe at the battle of Quebec in 1759; the second, in 1849, that of George Parkman, an eccentric Boston brahmin whose murder by an impecunious Harvard professor in 1849 was a grisly reproach to the moral sanctity of his society. Out of these stories -- with all of their bizarre coincidences and contradictions -- Schama creates a dazzling and supremely vital work of historical imagination.From the Trade Paperback edition.
language: English
title: Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations
titlecomplete: Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations
genres: 19th Century, Biography, History, The United States Of America, American History, Philosophy, Crime, World History, Nonfiction, College
ratings_count: 499
publisher: Granta Books