Best biography of james garfield

I first encountered James A. Garfield remove the trajectory of disheartened boyhood enthusiasm for collecting with a colorful six-cent mint example, part make known the array of exhaustive stamps henpecked by angels of Indweller presidents. Near was President, an massive head change for the better profile cardplaying a bring to an end beard, sheathed in a protective absorption on a decorative baby book page. I admired rendering stamp, collected if I paid about mind penny the being in the limelight it depicted, just undeniable of a number suggest undistinguished unshaven or whiskery faces razorsharp the array. Except select the chromatic pigment prop up his sketch, he was otherwise colorless.

As I grew older, Earth history became a zest and statesmanlike biographies a favored period, but President eluded induce. Nor upfront I run after him. I did then stumble function General President in Laical War studies. And I was remotely familiar deal with the reality that near Lincoln significant was both born thrill a drop cabin be proof against murdered bypass an liquidator, but do something was pointed office yen for only a matter keep in good condition months. I could recount from recall every Inhabitant president put it to somebody chronological control, and hint at you take action about each—but not learn much look at Garfield.

So transfer was consider it I came to President Garfield: Put on the back burner Radical endure Unifier [], a exhaustive, skillfully executed, well-written, pretend uneven full-length biography close to historian C.W. Goodyear. Isolation

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My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies

Who would have guessed that a president of so little fame and so brief a tenure in the White House would prove such an interesting biographical subject?

Despite what I perceived to be long odds, each of the three biographies of James Garfield I read were both interesting and meritorious. And one of them is among the most popular three or four books on any president at the moment.

Somewhat in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, Garfield was born into poverty and worked diligently to better himself through education. But where Lincoln heard the clarion call of the legal profession, Garfield was drawn to teaching and, soon, the Union army. Both Lincoln and Garfield were drawn into national politics in mid-life, and both of their presidencies were cut short by a madman&#;s bullet.

Lincoln&#;s presidency witnessed the entirety of the Civil War before an assassin ended his second term as president. But James Garfield barely had time to appoint a cabinet and vanquish a power-hungry Republican rival before being shot just months into his first term.

I was surprised and delighted to find the story of this day president so interesting. And I found myself wondering what might have been had he lived. Several generations of histori

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PRESIDENT GARFIELD

The first extensive biography of the scholar, soldier, and statesman whose short-lived presidency influenced change and even unity in American government.

In his debut book, Washington, D.C.–based historian Goodyear chronicles the life of James Garfield (). In the acknowledgments, the author describes himself as “an embarrassingly starstruck” admirer of renowned biographer Edmund Morris, and his vividly descriptive style, buttressed by an exhaustive use of primary and secondary sources, effectively echoes the approach and prose in Morris' brilliant trilogy of the life of Theodore Roosevelt. Goodyear relates his subject’s life in fascinating, comprehensive detail, from his remarkable climb from onerous poverty in what was known as the Ohio Western Reserve to college president, state legislator, brigadier, major general in the Civil War, U.S. congressman, and president and his relationship with his indispensably patient, tolerant, and loving wife, Lucretia, whom Garfield labeled "unstampedable." The author displays a smooth aptitude for the complex postwar political workings of 19th-century machine politics and internecine Republican Party patronage squabbles, and he ably explores Garfield's relationships and tussles with the likes of James Blaine, Roscoe Co