New Releases by Stanley Weintraub

By mid-1917, with the world war going badly on all fronts, and casualties burgeoning, Prime Minister David Lloyd George met with General Edmund Allenby, fresh from France. Lloyd George wanted “Jerusalem for Christmas” as a holiday “present” for the increasingly disillusioned British people. Its seizure would also eliminate the Ottomans, who had inflicted the dismaying disaster at the Dardanelles, as a factor in the war. As Allenby departed, the PM handed him George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land, remarking that it was a better guide to reaching Jerusalem than anything “in the pigeon holes of the War Office”. Having been raised on the Bible, Allenby, as this narrative illustrates, did indeed exploit it. He would also have unanticipated expertise from an unknown and unmilitary officer, T. E. Lawrence, who turned his Arabian “sideshow” into campaigns distracting the Turks and their German military leadership. The desert war would be hard-fought, but, that December, after centuries in Muslim hands and with its sacred sites intact, Jerusalem fell.

When the wartime 1944 presidential election campaign geared up late that spring, Franklin D. Roosevelt had already occupied the White House years longer than any other president. Sensing likely weakness, the Republicans mounted an energetic and expensive campaign, hitting hard at FDR''s liberal domestic policies and the war''s ongoing cost. Despite gravely deteriorating health, FDR and his feisty running mate, the unexpected Harry Truman, campaigned vigorously against young governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and old-line Ohio governor John Bricker. Roosevelt''s charm and wit, as well as the military successes in Europe and the Pacific, contributed to his sweeping electoral victory. But the hard-fought campaign would soon take its toll on America''s only four-term president. Preeminent historian and biographer Stanley Weintraub recaptures FDR''s striking "last campaign" and the year''s momentous events, from the rainy city streets where Roosevelt, his legs paralyzed by polio since 1922, rode in an open car, to the battlefronts where the commander-in-chief''s forces were closing in on Hitler and Hirohito. The tale is unforgettable.

Douglas MacArthur towers over twentieth-century American history. His fame is based chiefly on his World War II service in the Philippines. Yet Korea, America''s forgotten war, was far more "MacArthur''s War" -- and it remains one of our most brutal and frightening. In just three years thirty-five thousand Americans lost their lives -- more than three times the rate of losses in Vietnam. Korea, like Vietnam, was a breeding ground for the crimes of war. To this day, six thousand Americans remain MIA. It was Korea where American troops faced a Communist foe for the first time, as both China and the Soviet Union contributed troops to the North Korean cause. The war that nearly triggered the use of nuclear weapons reveals MacArthur at his most flamboyant, flawed, yet still, at times, brilliant. Acclaimed historian Stanley Weintraub offers a thrilling blow-by-blow account of the key actions of the Korean War during the months of MacArthur''s command. Our lack of preparedness for the invasion, our disastrous retreat to a corner of Korea, the daring landing at Inchon, the miscalculations in pursuing the enemy north, the headlong retreats from the Yalu River and Chosin Reservoir, and the clawing back to the 38th parallel, all can be blamed or credited to MacArthur. He was imperious, vain, blind to criticism, and so insubordinate that Truman was forced to fire him. Yet years later, the war would end where MacArthur had left it, at the border that still stands as one of history''s last frontiers between communism and freedom. MacArthur''s War draws on extensive archival research, memoirs, and the latest findings from archives in the formerly communist world, to weave a rich tale in the voices of its participants. From MacArthur and his upper cadre, to feisty combat correspondent Maggie Higgins and her fellow journalists, to the grunts who bore the brunt of MacArthur''s decisions, for good and ill, this is a harrowing account of modern warfare at its bloodiest. MacArthur''s War is the gripping story of the Korean War and its soldiers -- and of the one soldier who dominated the rest.

One of America''s greatest Christmas stories and also one of its very first -- from the period between the end of the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the Constitution -- was a creation of none other than George Washington. The story isn''t just about Washington coming home for Christmas for the first time since the war began, but about the character of our most important Founding Father and about the precedent he set for democratic leadership. It is the story of a loving husband, a beloved military leader, and above all, a humble and great man. In late November 1783 when Washington finally received formal notice of the signing of a peace treaty with England he had little more than a month to accept the transfer of power from British troops in New York; to bid farewell to his troops; and to resign his commission to Congress if he hoped to make it to Mount Vernon for Christmas. He could have remained in charge of the army and become a virtual king to the Americans who loved him. Control of the newly forming government was his to take -- yet he chose to resign. It was that decision, coupled with his later decision to step down from the presidency after two terms, that rendered him "the greatest character of the age" (according to none other than King George III). Washington''s homeward journey is one of the most moving and inspiring stories from his great and eventful life. When he bade farewell to his troops at Fraunces Tavern in New York City there were no dry eyes. When he reached Congress and gave a retirement speech, it cemented his greatness more fully than had his victory over the British. When he made it to Mount Vernon, finally, on Christmas Eve, it could not have been a happier homecoming. General Washington''s Christmas Farewell is a deeply moving Christmas story as well as a great American story.

It was truly a white Christmas in the forests of the Ardennes in 1944, but that was cold comfort to the Allied soldiers trying to stop the Nazis from retaking Belgium in one of the most decisive battles of World War II. While a German loudspeaker taunted, "How would you like to die for Christmas?" the Allied forces dug in, despite freezing conditions. In a medieval chapel, General George S. Patton, who needed fair weather for airborne troop support to arrive, uttered what would become a famous prayer: "Sir...You have just got to make up Your mind whose side You''re on." His soldiers wouldn''t be home for the holidays, but as the skies cleared, they went on to win a battle and a war. In the tradition of his Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, acclaimed author Stanley Weintraub explores the irony and poignancy of waging war during a season dedicated to peace on Earth. Book jacket.

Traces the arranged marriage of Charlotte and Lionel Rothschild, their love for each other, Charlotte''s success as a great chatelaine of the Victorian era, and Lionel''s rise as England''s leading financier.

Biographer of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Stanley Wientraub employs previously little-used or unknown diaries, letters, memoirs and reportage from both sides of the Atlantic to throw fresh light on Edward VII''s half-century of waiting to become King. The book provides a picture of the Prince and his worlds: his difficult and frustrating childhood, his introductions to gentlemanly sins at Oxford and Cambridge, and his chilly arranged marriage to the pretty but dull Princess Alexandra, from whom he frenetically escaped in a succession of balls, races, spas, gambling, carousing and whoring.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was the most notorious and misunderstood American artist of his time, and also the most influential. He is one of the most recognized names in painting because of his celebrated -- and endlessly satirized -- "Whistler''s Mother". Born in Mass., he wound up living most of his life in Russia, France, and England. His sense of belligerent alienation erupted in ways that were endlessly fascinating. His insatiable urge to take his grievances to court; his feuds and vendettas with Ruskin, Wilde, and Beardsley; his acid wit and libelous invective; his ability to set fashions in art, dress, even lifestyle; his love affairs and relentless social climbing -- his was a flamboyant life told "with clarity, judgment, and liveliness."

On Christmas Eve in the early years of World War I, men on both sides left their trenches, laid down their arms and joined in a spontaneous celebration. For a brief time the war stopped, the enemies met in no-man''s land and buried their dead, exchanged gifts and even played football together. The stories of men who were there illuminate the fragile truce, and highlight the happenings that occured as the truce spread. It also tells of the reluctant truth, that they had to re-start one of history''s most bloody wars.

Stanley Weintraub, biographer of Queen Victoria and other major figures of her era, here unveils for the first time the largely hidden role of Prince Albert, establishing him as one of the greatest men of his days. Drawing on previously unexplored sources, Weintraub''s Uncrowned King delves into Prince Albert''s political, familial, financial, medical, and sexual life.

Presents letters written between children and U.S. presidents from George Washington to Richard Nixon.

Demonstrating the influence of scholar-teacher Stanley Weintraub on his students, Shaw and Other Matters reflects the scope of that influence in its concern with a variety of literary figures - from Shaw to Joe Orton - and of topics such as war memoirs and golem/robots. The variety is there, as well, in the approaches to the subjects: Rodelle Weintraub''s dream analysis of Arms and the Man; Julie Sparks''s comparison of Shaw with Bellamy, Morris, and Bulwer-Lytton as world "betterers"; Michael Pharand''s evaluation of Shaw''s changing views of Napoleon; Kinley Roby''s tracing of Shaw''s exchanges of views on playwriting with Arnold Bennett; and Kay Li''s archetypal exploration of characters in Heartbreak House.

In Arms and the Man, the Chocolate Soldier, a fugitive mercenary, seeks refuge in the bedroom of the enemy, and in the satire, John Bull''s Other Island, a typical Englishman arrives in Ireland to run for Parliament. Original.

Biography of Queen Victoria (1819-1901).

Biografie over de Ierse schrijver (1856-1950)

Review of Maugham: a biography / Ted Morgan, and W.H. Auden : the life of a poet / Charles Osborne.

At twenty, "the Fra Angelico of Satanism," as Roger Fry was to call Aubrey Beardsley, was working as an obscure clerk in a London life insurance company. Three years later he was the most notorious--and perhaps the most influential--artist in England. His controversial drawings for Oscar Wilde''s Salome were so daring and different that someone quipped that Wilde''s play illustrated Beardsley''s art. His work as art editor of the two most famous magazines of the 1890''s, The Yellow Book and The Savoy, consolidated his fame although he was unreasonably dragged into the Wilde scandal and nearly destroyed by it. By the time he produced his strikingly scabrous drawings for a pornographer publisher''s Lysistrata he was dying, yet still incredibly productive. But he had already indelibly stamped the age with his name. In a front-page review in the New York Times Book Review in 1967, art critic John Russell wrote of Beardsley that "as a biography--a life''s story" the book "needs no successsor." Aubrey Beardsley: Imp of the Perverse began as an updating of the original biography but new material at hand and the need to reinterpret Beardsley from the perspective of augmented life-records made a mere updating impractical, especially since the climate for publishing has become far more receptive to truth in biography, however explicit.