Rating: 
Summary: Compelling and Convincing
Review: A gripping read and a model of historical biography. Stiles uses the life of Jesse James to retell the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Missouri. His scholarship is impeccable and up-to-date, drawing on authors such as Eric Foner and Michael Fellman. His thesis, that James saw himself as a fighting Confederate right to the end, is convincing. And he writes like an angel. This book shows how a professional historian can clarify a topic previously muddied by amateurs. And the reviewers here who claim that Stiles has some anti-Confederate bias are just dense. He does write about atrocities on both sides.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased book!
Review: A major historical work ?! I bought this book hoping for a new look at Jesse James to supplement Ted Yeatman's classic biography. The errors are extensive ! Many readers wouldn't recognize them, but someone who has read some of the true books on the border war and Jesse James will immediately notice them and be quickly revolted. If this author did his research, he left the notes at the library. By the way Stiles is a revesionist historian. He is a lier, omit facts and twist the truth to fit his lie!
This is well the worst book about Jesse James I've read.
Rating:
Summary: It's About Time!
Review: After a century of glorification and hero-worship idolatry, fuelled by hollywood's total lack of interest in true history in favor of romantic swashbuckle and garbage, the Jesse James myth has finally been exposed for what it is: nonsense, masking the ruthless, murderous career of a racist and terrorist.
T. J. Stiles has come into Missouri and painstakingly researched the real motives and events in the life of Jesse James. With a great, readable style and the dedication to facts of a professional historian, without bias, Mr. Stiles unmasks our modern 'robin hood' and exposes Jesse as the politically motivated arch-villain that he was.
I loved his previous 'In Their Own Words' series, but Mr. Stiles has taken a great leap with this book to the foremost ranks of
American historians. We need more Stiles!
Rating:
Summary: The only fair-minded appraisal: A superb work
Review: As a historian of the Civil War era, with a special interest in the border states, I have to state that this is a truly superb work, combining groundbreaking scholarship with breathtakingly good writing. If the average assistant professor of history made simply one of the many fresh interpretations and insights that Stiles makes in this remarkable book, he or she would certainly gain tenure. As it is, Stiles makes seemingly dozens, including new insights on the way the border ruffians polarized politics in Missouri before the Civil War, the beginnings of the guerrilla war there and the efforts by both sides to drive out civilians in order to undercut the other side's base of support, the exact transition of the Confederate bushwhackers into bandits during the turmoil of 1866, and the explicitly political (not economic) grievances captured in the outlaws' train robberies. Stiles also makes the definitive assessment of the historical thesis of "social banditry" as it applies to Jesse James.This is not to say that this book is tedious reading. It is a swift-moving account, one that vividly captures the characters and times. Unfortunately, some customer reviewers have seen fit to use the excellent writing to attack this book, calling it fiction, not history. There is no rational basis for this. As Larry McMurtry noted in a long review in The New Republic, Stiles is extremely careful, at times even cautious, in his judgments. He does offer judgments, and he recreates events brilliantly. But he never goes too far, and he presents his case in detail in his lengthy endnotes. It is unfortunate that Amazon.com does not have the staff to fact-check customer reviews; if they did, there would not be a single negative review. For example, a reviewer from "Fairfax, Va." claims that Stiles does not mention certain details of the story, such as the fact that two early victims of Jesse James's guerrilla band, Bond and Dagley, were thought responsible for the hanging of Reuben Samuel the year before. Stiles does in fact address this; he simply puts a different light on it (saying, "Indeed, there was nothing military about the decision to kill either Bond or Dagley; they had long since left the militia...", p. 104). This same customer review, like the one or two other negative customer reviews, is so inaccurate as to appear to be a deliberate attempt to undercut Mr. Stiles's superb work, without reasonable basis. To my knowledge, every historian and professional book reviewer who has examined this book (and there have been many, from Eric Foner to James McPherson) has given it a resounding vote of approval. It is scholarly in the best sense, vividly written in the best way, always honest, insightful, and gripping. A reader who wishes to know the details of Frank James's post-banditry career as a burlesque-house doorman certainly should rush out to buy Ted Yeatman's "Frank and Jesse James." A reader who wants to understand why Jesse James was the public face of the outlaws, why he played such a large public role, what Missouri (and the United States in general) endured in the Civil War and Reconstruction, and wishes to read a painstakingly accurate but vividly written account of the James brothers' escapades, should definitely buy this outstanding work.
Rating:
Summary: The Times and the Man
Review: As a Southerner reading this account focused on a single man, I can better relate to the history of the South, and some of the feelings that have lingered here much too long. The writer justifiably gives us a front row seat in regard to the state of our country at the time James' became visible in the tracks of the horrid history of the Civil War. The book could not give a realistic view of the man without describing the air that filled his nostrils, and the smoke that filled the mind and dimmed the moral vision of that time. The South's attempt to hold to slavery, whether for the rich few or just to arrogantly show that a country that is free can do what it wants, right or wrong, came at a high price. Stiles sets the stage that few of us got in our history classes. No one escaped the influence of the war, certainly not Missouri. Putting neighbor against neighbor, man against government, morality against riches, the war gets real as you wonder how your own ansestors dealt with awful situations. Was James just at the wrong place and the wrong time? What man knows what he really would be in the same circumstances? Stiles gives the politics of the two diverse elements, the financial forces and sometimes so little a glimpse of the drive to awaken the moral conscience, that it pulls the reader's heart into the despair of the times. The causes of war and the impact of war circle head-to-tail to drive men to unnatural callousness, where blood, fear and vanity mix, and the devils that are born SHOULD leave a trail that history can follow and make recurrence a most dreaded thing.
Thanks Mr. Stiles
Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Book on Jesse James
Review: Don't be mislead by the nit-pickings of all the buffs. This is the definitive book on Jesse James, the one that puts his life in proper historic perspective. Stiles has written the book that has so far eluded ever other biographer of Jesse.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing new...
Review: Having pored over both the pre-publication and the published editions of this much-touted book, I found it a profound disappointment. Stiles is obviously not very familiar with either the Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border or with Jesse James. He does little more than paraphrase what has already been published, and what little new material he introduces is inconsequential.
Despite its title, "Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War" is not a biography. Stiles appears to have originally meant to write on the horrors of the Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border, relying heavily on books by Ed Leslie, Michael Fellman, Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich as his sources. Jesse James seems almost an afterthought, and what accurate biographical information Stiles includes can be found in much more detail in books by William Settle and Ted Yeatman. His "new" portrayal of Jesse James as a political activist is old hat to any student of Jesse's career, as it was in place during Jesse's lifetime.
Stiles makes numerous factual errors--so many that this work teeters on the edge of being a historical novel, a genre to which he might be better suited.
Rating:
Summary: Portrait of an original American terrorist-fascinating!
Review: Hollywoodization has, over the years, portrayed many a violent criminal as either some sort of romanticized "Robin Hood" or a misunderstood rebel against some evil social ailment that could only be addressed through violence. T. J. Stiles takes on one such apparition in Jesse James in his vivid interpretive biography of James, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. The James Stiles depicts is one that Hollywood would avoid like the plague-a racist, violent criminal bigot who was still fighting the cause of Southern Slavery 20 years after the Civil War had ended. The James depicted here is a truly loathsome and vile creature. Very much a creature of the malignant social mania that surrounded the institution of slavery (6 in the James house hold alone), James' short violent existence was not so much pure banditry nor rebellion as much as it was a terroristic guerrilla action aimed at prolonging a long dead cause. Even if one were to write off much of his more horrendous beliefs as merely an inevitable byproduct of his experience and times any sympathy one might have for the man quickly dissipates as one comes to understand that his reactionary and impulsive character and his incredible predilection for reactionary mayhem are so instilled in him as to be atavistic in nature. Foe example, he is depicted as "mistakenly" murdering several people simply because he couldn't pause to see who it really was he was killing. The book is as interesting as a portrait of the struggles and hazards of living in the Missouri "border zone" that encompassed the more robust passions of both the pro-slavery and abolitionist movements indigenous to the South and the North and the social upheaval-and the attendant social violence-which such upheaval engendered. This is a great book. It's not a pleasant read-the subject matter all but obviates any chance for that-but it is a brilliant historical presentation which provides one with the frank, unvarnished truths behind the aftereffects of he Civil War the incredible human toll that conflict caused long after the formal engagement had been decided.
Rating:
Summary: Highly readable and informative
Review: I agree with all of the positive reviews that have already been listed here. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it about the Civil War - particularly Missouri's role therein - as well as about the James gang and other rebels, guerillas and bandits of that era.
Rating:
Summary: Much more than another compilation of Jesse James trivia
Review: I am not a big fan of Jesse James lore, but this book was recommended to me and I found it to be excellent. In addition to a penetrating biography of Jesse James--and assorted family members--Stiles embeds his tale firmly in the history of Western Missouri during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. It is worth its price for what you can learn about local Missouri history alone. Not only that, Stiles is an excellent writer who draws you into his story quickly. You will have a tough time putting this one down. (See the other reviews for more details.)
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