A Man by Any Other Name

In A Man by Any Other Name, Beilein has crafted a biography of a man, essentially unknown, whose actions make him an important figure in the Civil War as it was fought on the western borderland. Quantrill is representative of hundreds of comparable figures who fade into and out of communities’ contested regions. What Beilein has done here is give life to an individual and a broader group that desperately need to be known by modern scholars.

-- Brian D. McKnight * coeditor of The Guerrilla Hunters: Irregular Conflicts During the Civil War *

A Man by Any Other Name is not a traditional cradle-to-grave biography of a Civil War figure. It might be fair to categorize it as an episodic psycho-biography that seeks to understand its seemingly unknowable subject in deeper ways than those attempted by earlier biographers.

* Civil War Books and Authors *

A new generation of scholars has taken to the study of the Civil War’s wiliest warriors. A Man by Any Other Name is a critical entry in this latest wave of scholarship: giving readers deep insight into the challenge of researching men, like William Clarke Quantrill, who operated on the margins of history. . . . [T]hese new works also seek to understand the Civil War’s guerrillas in the context of their own society and time, rather than viewing them through a comparative lens. Beilein does the former exceptionally well, an achievement that will make this study standard reading for many years to come.

-- Cecily N. Zander * The Civil War Monitor *

For the reader who is new to Quantrill or knows little about his life Beilein’s biography is a good accompaniment as a tool to understanding the man behind the guerilla mask, as well as the ideologies of Southern partisans within the context of nineteenth-century American manhood.

-- Sheritta Bitikofer * Emerging Civil War *

The book seamlessly blends genres, reading at once like a detective story, a biography, and a Civil War history. Beilein showcases not only his skills as a historian of guerrilla warfare and masculinity but also his considerable flair for writing.

-- James J. Broomall * Missouri Historical Review *

A Man by Any Other Name stands as an impressionistic biography that examines Quantrill through the different manly guises— schoolmaster, frontiersman, confidence man, warrior, chieftain, and wanderer—that he donned across his short adult life. . . . Readers may question, with reason, whether we can ever fully know a figure so slippery, enigmatic, and shrouded by archival silences. Yet Beilein’s monograph, which should appeal to scholars and enthusiasts alike, is a welcome reminder that historians need not shy away from the challenge.

-- Jeremy Neely * Register of the Kentucky Historical Socie