FLEMING : West Point (fülszöveg)
Jefferson Davis, Edgar Allan Poe, William Tecumseh Sherman, James McNeil Whistler, George Armstrong Custer, Dwight Eisenhower—these are only a few of the array of famous names who have "boned math" and done close order drill at the United States Military Academy at West Point. All of them come to vivid life in this fascinating, informative and eminently readable story of a school whose graduates have played a central role in American history since its founding in 1802. From the day Sylvanus Thayer, a tough young major "with a solemn duty to perform" arrived to take charge, West Point's decades have been as colorful and turbulent as the men who responded to Thayer's dream of a corps of truly professional soldiers, committed to the defense of a free nation.
The Academy has survived riots, scandals, searing criticism from Presidents and Congresses. In 1845, the House of Representatives came within one vote of abolishing it. Again and again, the battlefield performances of Thayer's "sons" have squelched the critics. More than once, the school seemed to be sinking into obsolescence, when a dynamic superintendent, such as Robert E. Lee or Douglas MacArthur, arrived to rescue it. Today it is in the full tide of another intellectual resurgence, as it struggles to educate a new breed of soldiers, trained to ask "Why sir?" as well as to say "Yes sir."
Thomas J. Fleming, author of many outstanding books, including Now We Are Enemies, a Literary Guild Selection, researched over 500 books and manuscripts including many original and previously unavailable sources to write this compelling and comprehensive story. From this mass of material, and from interviews with West Point graduates and administrators, he has produced a book as vital as its subject—history as it should be written.
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| KATALÓGUS | TARTALOM |
