Dead Certainties - by Simon Schama (Paperback)

About the Book

The author of the bestselling Citizens reconstructs--and at times reinvents--the death of General James Wolfe at the battle of Quebec in 1759 and the 1849 murder of the Boston brahmin George Parkman, whose nephew would become Wolfe's biographer. What Schama achieves is "a mind-teasing delight".--The New York Times Book Review. Photographs.

Book Synopsis

History as inquest. Schama reconstructs- and at time reinvents- the death of General James Wolfe in 1759 at the battle of Quebec and the 1849 murder of George Parkman, whose nephew would become Wolfe's greatest biographer.

Review Quotes

"An infinitely beguiling book...a mind-teasing delight...Schama brings to bear an immense array of narrative elements."

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Intriguing and provocative... Dead Certainties inspires us throughout to examine our own assumptions about history and fiction"-- Newsday

"A virtuoso performance... in Schama's hands the past loses its remoteness and takes on the noise and clutter of experience....He has become one of the few contemporary historians who are read as much for themselves as for their subjects."

-- Andrew Delbanco, New Republic

About the Author

Simon Schama is the prize-winning author of seven acclaimed books. An art critic and essayist
for The New Yorker, he also writes and presents documentaries for BBC television. He is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University and lives outside New York City.