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If I looked up 'GRAVITAS' in the dictionary, Shelby Foote's picture and voice should be there. Anyway, while I just happened to enjoy this YouTube replay of a Brian Lamb GENUINE interview (as opposed to what we see these days), up pops a PROPHETIC statement by Mr Foote on the acceptance of history versus the desire to 'cancel' history.

The Civil War is, as Shelby Foote noted, at the crossroads of our being. Looked at one way, it marked the end of a long struggle against slavery and the beginning of a long one for civil rights and racial equality. Looked at another, it marked the end of limited government and the beginning of the encroaching, ever-present Leviathan that exists today. These memories can be both in sync and in conflict. After all, it was the deployment of strong government in the form of a dominant army and the passage of federal amendments that played a large role in...

Foote's narrative is such a breath of fresh air when compared to much of the politically motivated and agenda driven Civil War history of recent years. That alone would make it bad enough but, in addition, much of what is being written is not only poor history, it is poor literature. (Foote remains of the few adults in a room of Civil War historians populated by juveniles.)

Shelby Foote's War Story How a Memphis novelist’s history of the Civil War made history itself It was supposed to be a brief assignment—eighteen months or so, tops. In 1954, with the centennial of the end of the Civil War approaching, Bennett Cerf, the president of Random House, wrote the novelist Shelby Foote to propose a “short history” of the conflict. In midsummer the author traveled from his home in Memphis to meet with the publisher in New York, and the two came to terms. The target was 200,000 words; the advance, four hundred dollars. For Foote the plan was...

Not just a mere Foote-note Thursday, June 30, 2005 To read Shelby Foote on the Civil War is akin to reading Mark Twain about life on the Mississippi, or reading Alfred, Lord Tennyson on the glories of old England. Mr. Foote, who died Tuesday at age 88, chronicled the Civil War with a poetic and loving prose that will preserve that tragic conflict in the collective memory, in all its unfortunate but inspiring glory, as long as men speak the English tongue. "Whether the South, fighting for such anachronisms as slavery and self-government, could sustain the conflict past the breaking...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Historian Shelby Foote was buried Thursday under a huge magnolia tree near the graves of Civil War combatants whose exploits he chronicled in one of the best-known books about the conflict. Following a graveside service kept brief according to his wishes, Foote was buried on a tree-covered hill in Elmwood Cemetery, one of the South's most historic graveyards and the burial ground for more than 1,000 Civil War soldiers, including 22 generals. "His wife told me he didn't want anything that even came close to a eulogy," said the Rev. John Sewell, pastor of St. John's Episcopal...

Shelby Foote, a native of Greenville, Mississippi, was the author of five much-admired novels when his career took one of the richest detours in literary history: He spent 20 years writing a three-volume history of the Civil War that many regard as one of the great achievements in modern letters. More than a dozen years after the last volume was published, Foote became certifiably famous when his Delta drawl and handsome presence dominated Ken Burns’ PBS series, “The Civil War.” Foote, now 83, remains a Mississippi original: Images of Marcel Proust and bluesman Robert Johnson adorn his study, where he...

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- Novelist and Civil War historian Shelby Foote, whose appearances on a PBS-TV documentary series helped America better understand one of the most defining periods of its past, has died, his family said Tuesday. Foote's widow, Gwen, said her husband, who was 88, died Monday night.

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right? While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.Stars with bars:Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.Some things are better left...

Edie, who lives in a suburb of Rochester, N.Y., chanced upon one of my grammar columns and came knocking at my door on the Internet. Our discussion led from Bubba, the quintessential gentleman of Southern yeomanry, to Shelby Foote, the highly acclaimed author and narrator who sketches Southern virtues and vices with a loving brush.Our regional biases quickly became evident.Edie envisioned Bubba as a rustic rube incapable of speaking a grammatical sentence. I view him as a virtuoso with a wrench, a man of quick mind and versatile talents.I view Foote as a man with a clear-eyed view of the...

The movie Gods and Generals, features prominently in the March 2003 issue of TAE now on newsstands. Despite mixed reviews, the movie promises to enliven debate over the Civil War. In our January/February 2001 issue, TAE interviewed eminent Civil War historian Shelby Foote. Our conversation with him follows: Take a spirited ramble with America’s most literary historian as he discusses racism, Civil War battles, Lincoln, computers, the Confederate flag, novel writing, television, rednecks, the Klan, big government, and Yellow-dog Democrats. Shelby Foote Shelby Foote, a native of Greenville, Mississippi, was the author of five much-admired novels when his career took...