April 14; 1865. A famous actor pulls a trigger in the presidential balcony; leaps to the stage and escapes; as the president lies fatally wounded. In the panic that follows; forty-six terrified people scatter in and around Fordrsquo;s Theater as soldiers take up stations by the doors and the audience surges into the streets chanting; ldquo;Burn the place down!rdquo;This is the untold story of Lincolnrsquo;s assassination: the forty-six stage hands; actors; and theater workers on hand for the bewildering events in the theater that night; and what each of them witnessed in the chaos-streaked hours before John Wilkes Booth was discovered to be the culprit. In Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination; historian Thomas A. Bogar delves into previously unpublished sources to tell the story of Lincolnrsquo;s assassination from behind the curtain; and the tale is shocking. Police rounded up and arrested dozens of innocent people; wasting time that allowed the real culprit to get further away. Some closely connected to John Wilkes Booth were not even questioned; while innocent witnesses were relentlessly pursued. Booth was more connected with the production than you might have knownmdash;learn how he knew each member of the cast and crew; which was a hotbed of secessionist resentment. Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination also tells the story of what happened to each of these witnesses to history; after the investigation was overmdash;how each one lived their lives after seeing one of Americarsquo;s greatest presidents shot dead without warning.Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination is an exquisitely detailed look at this famous event from an entirely new angle. It is must reading for anyone fascinated with the saga of Lincolnrsquo;s life and the Civil War era.
#4541576 in eBooks 2013-06-01 2013-06-01File Name: B00E92UHTO
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A balanced; multi-disciplinary approach to War Narratives in Israeli Public DiscourseBy recent PHDTo say that Narratives of Dissent is an important work would be to utter a gross understatement about what is; in my opinion; the most wide-ranging piece of scholarship of its kind to date. Unprecedented in scope; this book goes beyond the usual Cultural Studies-style volume on modern-day Israel--the kind that inevitably focuses on mostly cinematic or literary depictions of strife and bellicosity; much of it from works that have been discussed to death for over a generation or so. This volume; in contrast; skillfully brings together essays on such diverse topics as architecture; popular music; online social media; memory studies; and photography; while incorporating discussions on important recent (and older) specimens of Israeli cultural production.The essays in this volume are written in intelligent; jargonless prose that exhibits familiarity with the relevant historical debates and theoretical frameworks; necessary critical apparati; and the sometimes frankly personal expressions of the concerned; yet highly analytical; contributors. The editors have obviously taken great pains to produce a balanced and nuanced tome that; as Ranen Omer-Sherman points out in his Introduction; would not have the all-too-common effect of being "instantly polarizing;" as is much of the discourse surrounding Israeli letters and policy. This unique combination of academic acumen and invested interest makes for an enjoying and stimulating read. I; for one; plan to use this volume in my university courses on Israeli culture and society; as it is accessible both to the scholar and educated layperson alike. Kudos to the authors; the editors; and Wayne State UP for providing us with a multidisciplinary and up-to-date collection on issues whose relevance is ever-present; both from within and without the academic world.