Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
James Garfield is doubtless best known for being assassinated four months after his 1881 inauguration as president, but this biography--along with Allan Peskin's (see below), the first full-blown study in over 40 years--gives a sense of the man's stature. The first two-thirds of the book, written by Pulitzer prize-winning historian Margaret Leech, present a rather florid, exhaustively detailed account of Garfield's youth, his increasingly warm marriage, and his Civil War experience. A frontier intellectual like Lincoln, Garfield came from the Ohio stronghold of militant Republicanism and individualistic Protestantism; a passionate young man, he suffered complicated love affairs and physical afflictions, while grounding himself in Greek, Latin, and German classics and gaining his first taste of political maneuvers (especially well described by Leech) as chief of staff to the volatile General Rosecrans and the protege of wartime Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase. Harry J. Brown, an editor of the Garfield diaries, concluded the book after Leech's death with a compact chapter on Garfield's ascent to GOP Congressional leadership, a dramatic account of his unexpected nomination for the Presidency, and a quick section on his White House tenure emphasizing the swords-drawn fights over appointments rather than the new policy initiatives. What Brown has also fortunately done, however, is to append a selection of Garfield's letters, almost half again as long as the book, which provide an unexpectedly absorbing sense of Garfield's anti-bombastic simplicity (rather than what Leech calls his ""misty sentimentality and idealism"" as a youth), his integrity, the scholarship so respected by his colleagues, and his political horse sense. If you must choose between this biography and Peskin's, choose this one.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Subjects
Biography, Politics and government, Presidents, Garfield, James Abram, Pres. U.S., 1831-1881, Garfield, james a. (james abram), 1831-1881, Presidents, united states, United states, politics and government, 1861-1865, United states, politics and government, 1865-1900, HistoryPlaces
United StatesShowing 1 featured edition. View all 1 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1 |
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Source records
Scriblio MARC recordCollingswood Public Library record
Ithaca College Library MARC record
Internet Archive item record
OpenLibraries-Trent-MARCs record
marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record
marc_claremont_school_theology MARC record
Library of Congress MARC record
marc_claremont_school_theology MARC record
Better World Books record
marc_columbia MARC record
harvard_bibliographic_metadata record
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?December 13, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
March 31, 2022 | Edited by mountainaxe1 | Edited without comment. |
March 1, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
June 30, 2019 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |