Allen C. Guelzo. Robert E. Lee: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. Pg 588. $ 35.00

In August of 2017, white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the impending removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park. The statue was placed in the park in 1924, during the high water mark of white supremacy and Lost Cause sympathies. But the riots in Charlottesville reveal that the public image of R. E. Lee remains controversial. On the one hand, Lee is seen by many as a heroic figure and military genius who staved off northern aggression against impossible odds in a audacious defense of States Rights and Southern heritage. Yet, on the other, Lee is seen as a defender of slavery, a symbol of white privilege and racism, a man whose legacy has become a glaring offense to progressive sensitivities. Although there are a number of capable biographies of General Lee already in print (Emory Thomas’ 1995 volume, Robert E. Lee: A Biography stands out), it is time for a thorough re-assessment of R. L. Lee and his legacy. Allen C. Guelzo is the ideal historian to write such a volume.

Guelzo is an award-winning Civil War era historian, who previously taught at Gettysburg College. Currently, Dr. Guelzo is Senior Research Scholar in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He is a three time Lincoln Prize recipient, and in 2013 was awarded the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History for his 2013 book, Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, in which Robert E. Lee plays a major role. Guelzo is uniquely suited to take a fresh look at a man who is far more complicated than his hagiographers (i.e., Douglas Southall Freeman’s four volume, R. E. Lee) or his critics (Thomas L. Connelly’s 1977, The Marble Man), have indicated.

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