Michael Wallis – författare

In this revisionist biography, award-winning historian Michael Wallis re-creates the rich anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859–1881), a young man who became a legend in his time and remains an enigma to this day. In an extraordinary evocation of the legendary Old West, Wallis demonstrates why the Kid has remained one of our most popular folk heroes. Filled with dozens of rare images and period photographs, Billy the Kid separates myth from reality and presents an unforgettable portrait of this brief and violent life.

From the best-selling author of Billy the Kid and Route 66, a true-life story of a notorious outlaw that magnificently re-creates the vanished, impoverished world of Dust Bowl America. Michael Wallis evokes the hard times of the era as he follows the life of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd from his coming of age, when there were no jobs and no food, to his descent into a life of petty crime, bootlegging, murder, and prison. Before long he was one of the FBI's original "public enemies." After a series of spectacular bank robberies he was slain in an Ohio field in 1934 at the age of thirty. Pretty Boy is social history at its best, portraying, with a sweeping style, the larger story of the hardscrabble farmers whose lives were so intolerably shattered by the Depression.

Popular culture transformed his memory into “Davy Crockett,” and Hollywood gave him a raccoon hat he hardly ever wore. In this surprising New York Times bestseller, historian Michael Wallis has cast a fresh look at the flesh-and-blood man behind one of the most celebrated figures in American history. More than a riveting story, Wallis’s David Crockett is a revelatory, authoritative biography that separates fact from fiction and provides us with an extraordinary evocation of not only a true American hero but also the rough-and-tumble times in which he lived.

This rich, rousing gusher of a biography captures the life and times of an American hero and the birth of the modern oil empire he created.Frank Phillips, founder of Phillips Petroleum, was one of the most prominent self-made business tycoons of the twentieth century. In Oil Man, Michael Wallis, a best-selling historian of the West, presents Phillips against a pageant of luminaries and outlaws that includes Will Rogers, Harry Truman, Edna Ferber, J. Paul Getty, and Pretty Boy Floyd.Spanning the final days of America's frontier West through the Roaring Twenties and two world wars, Oil Man is a bold, colorful biography of an original American entrepreneur. A classic work that continues to gather accolades since its original publication in 1988, the book captures the life and times of an American hero.

"WESTWARD HO! FOR OREGON AND CALIFORNIA!"In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and a restless caravan prepared for what they hoped would be the most rewarding journey of a lifetime. But in eagerly pursuing what would a century later become known as the "American dream," this optimistic-yet-motley crew of emigrants was met with a chilling nightmare; in the following months, their jingoistic excitement would be replaced by desperate cries for help that would fall silent in the deadly snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada.We know these early pioneers as the Donner Party, a name that has elicited horror since the late 1840s. Now, celebrated historian Michael Wallis—beloved for his myth-busting portraits of legendary American figures—continues his life’s work of parsing fact from fiction to tell the true story of one of the most embroidered sagas in Western history.Wallis begins the story in 1846, a momentous "year of decision" for the nation, when incredible territorial strides were being made in Texas, New Mexico, and California. Against this dramatic backdrop, an unlikely band of travelers appeared, stratified in age, wealth, education and ethnicity. At the forefront were the Donners: brothers George and Jacob, true sons of the soil determined to tame the wild land of California; and the Reeds, headed by adventurous, business-savvy patriarch James. In total, the Donner-Reed group would reach eighty-seven men, women, and children, and though personal motives varied—bachelors thirsting for adventure, parents wanting greater futures for their children—everyone was linked by the same unwavering belief that California was theirs for the taking.Skeptical of previous accounts of how the group ended up in peril, Wallis has spent years retracing its ill-fated journey, uncovering hundreds of new documents that illuminate how a combination of greed, backbiting, and recklessness led the group to become hopelessly snowbound at the infamous Donner Pass in present-day California. Climaxing with the grim stories of how the party’s paltry rations soon gave way to unimaginable hunger, Wallis not only details the cannibalism that has in perpetuity haunted their legacy but also the heroic rescue parties that managed to reach the stranded, only to discover that just forty-eight had survived the ordeal.An unflinching and historically invaluable account of the darkest side of Manifest Destiny, The Best Land Under Heaven offers a brilliant, revisionist examination of one of America's most calamitous and sensationalized catastrophes.

In the annals of legendary Wild West desperadoes, Belle Starr is remembered to this day as the Bandit Queen. Shortly after her murder in 1889, a highly romanticized, sensational book titled Bella Starr ... The Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James was published—the first in a series of high-profile portraits to brand Starr as a villain. Now, celebrated author Michael Wallis parses over a century of mythmaking to reveal the woman behind the renegade legend.Wielding compelling research, including correspondence, official records, and contemporary newspaper accounts, Wallis traces Starr’s beginnings to Carthage, Missouri, where she was born Myra Maibelle Shirley in 1848 and was classically educated to be a Southern belle. Myra’s early years were characterized by the chaotic violence of the Civil War—she was traumatized by the death of her brother, who was killed riding with “bushwhackers,” one of the many insurgent guerilla groups supporting the Confederate Army. From then on, she swore revenge against all Yankees and became a willing “friend to any brave and gallant outlaw.”The crimes committed by Starr’s innermost circle—stagecoach stickups, bank robbery, horse theft—would take her from war-torn Carthage to rollicking Scyene, Texas, until she finally settled in Indian Territory (present Oklahoma). And although Starr indeed ran in the same circles as notorious outlaws Jesse James and the Younger brothers, the crimes ascribed to her were greatly embellished—including the fact that the allegedly bloodthirsty Starr more than likely never killed a single person.Turning a redemptive eye to Belle Starr’s tarnished legacy, Wallis crafts an illuminating portrait of a woman demonized for refusing to accept the genteel Victorian ideals expected of her, a woman who chose instead to live her life outside the law, riding sidesaddle with a pearl-handled Colt .45 strapped to her hip.

"WESTWARD HO! FOR OREGON AND CALIFORNIA!"In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and a restless caravan prepared for what they hoped would be the most rewarding journey of a lifetime. But in eagerly pursuing what would a century later become known as the "American dream," this optimistic-yet-motley crew of emigrants was met with a chilling nightmare; in the following months, their jingoistic excitement would be replaced by desperate cries for help that would fall silent in the deadly snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada.We know these early pioneers as the Donner Party, a name that has elicited horror since the late 1840s. With The Best Land Under Heaven, Wallis has penned what critics agree is “destined to become the standard account” (Washington Post) of the notorious saga. Cutting through 160 years of myth-making, the “expert storyteller” (True West) compellingly recounts how the unlikely band of early pioneers met their fate. Interweaving information from hundreds of newly uncovered documents, Wallis illuminates how a combination of greed and recklessness led to one of America’s most calamitous and sensationalized catastrophes. The result is a “fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring” (Oklahoman) examination of the darkest side of Manifest Destiny.

In the annals of Wild West desperadoes, Belle Starr is remembered as the Bandit Queen. Now Michael Wallis parses over a century of mythmaking to reveal the woman behind the renegade legend.Starr was born Myra Maibelle Shirley in 1848 and was educated to be a Southern belle. Her early years were characterised by the chaotic violence of the American Civil War—she was traumatised by the death of her brother while riding with a guerilla group supporting the Confederate Army and she swore revenge against all Yankees, becoming a “friend to any brave and gallant outlaw”.Turning a redemptive eye to Belle Starr’s legacy, Wallis crafts portrait of a woman demonised for refusing to accept genteel Victorian ideals, who chose to live her life outside the law, riding with a pearl-handled Colt .45 strapped to her hip.

Extract actionable insights from text and unstructured data.Information extraction is the task of automatically extracting structured information from unstructured or semi-structured text. SAS Text Analytics for Business Applications: Concept Rules for Information Extraction Models focuses on this key element of natural language processing (NLP) and provides real-world guidance on the effective application of text analytics. Using scenarios and data based on business cases across many different domains and industries, the book includes many helpful tips and best practices from SAS text analytics experts to ensure fast, valuable insight from your textual data. Written for a broad audience of beginning, intermediate, and advanced users of SAS text analytics products, including SAS Visual Text Analytics, SAS Contextual Analysis, and SAS Enterprise Content Categorization, this book provides a solid technical reference. You will learn the SAS information extraction toolkit, broaden your knowledge of rule-based methods, and answer new business questions. As your practical experience grows, this book will serve as a reference to deepen your expertise.

Extract actionable insights from text and unstructured data.Information extraction is the task of automatically extracting structured information from unstructured or semi-structured text. SAS Text Analytics for Business Applications: Concept Rules for Information Extraction Models focuses on this key element of natural language processing (NLP) and provides real-world guidance on the effective application of text analytics. Using scenarios and data based on business cases across many different domains and industries, the book includes many helpful tips and best practices from SAS text analytics experts to ensure fast, valuable insight from your textual data. Written for a broad audience of beginning, intermediate, and advanced users of SAS text analytics products, including SAS Visual Text Analytics, SAS Contextual Analysis, and SAS Enterprise Content Categorization, this book provides a solid technical reference. You will learn the SAS information extraction toolkit, broaden your knowledge of rule-based methods, and answer new business questions. As your practical experience grows, this book will serve as a reference to deepen your expertise.