James Robertson, author of the biography “Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend” will appear at the 10th annual West Virginia Book Festival on Oct. 16, 2010. Robertson was also chief historical consultant on the film “Gods and Generals” from Ted Turner/Warner Bros. [edited to correct details]
Book Festival organizers received confirmation this morning. Robertson will give a talk called “Quicksand and Land Mines: Writing Civil War History,” at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 16, in WV Room 105 at the Charleston Civic Center. Here’s the rest of his official bio:
The Danville, Va., native is the author or editor of more than 20 books that include such award-winning studies as “Civil War! America Becomes One Nation;” “General A.P. Hill;” and “Soldiers Blue and Gray.”
The recipient of every major award given in the Civil War field, Robertson is frequently asked to appear in Civil War programs on the Arts & Entertainment Network, the History Channel, C-SPAN and public television. He is presently an Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech and Executive Director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. Robertson is also a charter member (by Senate appointment) of Virginia’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission.
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This is great! Dr. Robertson is a great speaker and a great teacher of Civil War History. His reputation was such that I gave my nephew strict instructions to take this guy’s class when he was at VA Tech (it took him until his senior year to get in the course – but he was so glad he made the effort). I’ll definitely be there…..
Historian James Robertson is not the basis for God’s and General’s
God’s and Generals is directly taken from the book by the same name. Written by Jeff Shaara.
Thank you, Jeff Bumgardner. I’ve corrected the post and emailed Professor Robertson.
I am excited about this. The very first articles I had published when I was still in college at the age of 18 and 19 were on the Civil War. I’ve been thinking about writing about some of the West Virginian historians that I knew and who taught me so much “way back when.” These men and women were my mentors and I still love and study history has much as I did in my undergraduate work.
Dawn, if this idea would interest you, I would love to write about knowing them and what they taught me, but I don’t want to write it with no place to publish it!
By the way, they were so important to me! I wish everyone of them knew that my dissertation is in the WVU library of Appalachian archives!
[...] Festival line-up includes: New York Times best selling author Nicholas Sparks; Civil War historian James Robertson; children’s author Carmen Deedy; award-winning novelist and West Virginia native Jayne Anne [...]