LECKIE : From sea to shining sea (fülszöveg)
Robert Leckie's series of popular histories of crucial periods in our country's past have so far covered World War II, the Civil War, and the American Revolution, and have won praise for their lively style, narrative pace, and in-depth profiles of leading figures. Now he tells the dramatic story of the young nation's first fifty years following the victory over the British at Yorktown, a turbulent period that saw the establishment of a new, democratic government, and many challenges to its survival from within and without.
Among these were the outrageous depredations of the Barbary pirates of Tripoli, on the North African coast, which led to a war with these brigands that reads like something out of a Hollywood epic (though the star was a real-life naval captain, Stephen Decatur, not Errol Flynn).
No sooner were the Barbary pirates subdued than friction with the British broke out into the War of 1812. In lively prose Leckie describes how British forces seized and burned Washington, the new American capital; were held at bay at Baltimore as Francis Scott Key witnessed the shelling of Fort McHenry and wrote "The Star Spangled Banner"; met their match on Lake Erie in fierce naval engagements; and finally were soundly defeated by an army led by Andrew Jackson in the last battle of the war, the Battle of New Orleans, actually fought after peace had been signed in Paris.
Leckie climaxes his saga with a well-paced description of the Texas fight for independence from Mexico, including the legendary Battle of the Alamo; Texas's annexation by the United States; the subsequent outbreak of war between the United States and Mexico; and the two U.S. military expeditions, one led by Zachary Taylor along the northern Mexican border, the other by Winfield Scott by sea to Vera Cruz and overland to Mexico City and the Halls of Montezuma.
A grand story from page 1 to the end, it is highlighted throughout with the marvelous profiles of heroes, statesmen, and scalawags that have become a Leckie trademark.
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| KATALÓGUS | TARTALOM |
