Garry Wills

One of our greatest historians offers a surprising new view of the greatest historian of the nineteenth century, Henry Adams. Wills showcases Henry Adams's little-known but seminal study of the early United States and elicits from it fresh insights on the paradoxes that roil America to this day. Adams drew on his own southern fixation, his extensive foreign travel, his political service in Lincoln's White House, and much more to invent the study...

Garry Wills is the bestselling author of many books on religion and American history, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lincoln at Gettysburg, a biography of Augustine, and a translation of Augustine's Confessions. From Pulitzer Prize–winner Garry Wills, the story of Augustine's Confessions In this brief and incisive book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills tells the story of the Confessions--what motivated Augustine to dictate...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Lincoln at Gettysburg" brings his eloquence, wit, and on-target perceptions of American life and politics to this fascinating, well-drawn protrait of a twentieth-century hero. In this work of great originality, the biography of an idea, Garry Wills shows how John Wayne came to embody Amercian values and influenced our cultoure to a degree unmatched by any other public figure of his time. In Wills's hands, Wayne's...

In the paperback edition of the critically acclaimed hardcover, bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winner Garry Wills explores Thomas Jefferson's final and favorite achievement, the University of Virginia. The University of Virginia is one of America's greatest architectural treasures and one of Thomas Jefferson's proudest achievements. At his request his headstone says nothing of his service as America's first Secretary of State or its third President....

Updated with a new preface by the author, this captivating biography of America's fortieth president recounts Ronald Reagan's life-from his poverty-stricken Illinois childhood to his acting career to his California governorship to his role as commander in chief-and examines the powerful myths surrounding him, many of which he created himself. Praised by some for his sunny optimism and old-fashioned rugged individualism, derided by others for being...

In Bomb Power, Garry Wills reveals how the atomic bomb transformed our nation down to its deepest constitutional roots-by dramatically increasing the power of the modern presidency and redefining the government as a national security state-in ways still felt today. A masterful reckoning from one of America's preeminent historians, Bomb Power draws a direct line from the Manhattan Project to the usurpations of George W. Bush.The invention of the atomic...

Examines the goals, methods, and styles of the evangelists and how these shaped the gospels' messages. The earliest book, Mark, emphasizes Jesus the sufferer; in Matthew, Jesus the teacher; in Luke, Jesus the reconciler; and in John, Jesus the mystic.

Renaissance plays and poetry in England were saturated with the formal rhetorical twists that Latin education made familiar to audiences and readers. Yet a formally educated man like Ben Jonson was unable to make these ornaments come to life in his two classical Roman plays. The author, focusing his attention on Shakepeare's play, Julius Caesar, here demonstrates how Shakespeare so wonderfully made these ancient devices vivid, giving his characters...