Product Description

This biography evaluates and examines James A. Garfield's military career, the congressional years and the Presidency. Allan Perkins has had access to the Garfield and other papers, as well as drawing upon other resources of the Reconstruction Era.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #439407 in Books
• Published on: 1978-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 720 pages

Customer Reviews

Good Historic Biography about a Little Known President
This was an interesting biography about an accomplished General, Congressman and President. Peskin has done a great job of discussing both the military and civilian accomplishments of this great man. The book is usually entertaining and informative; however, at times it becomes a bit dry. Moreover, I wish Peskin would have spent more pages on the academical accomplishments of this one time professor. An interesting read for persons interested in post-reconstructionist United States.

A Classic of American History
I had the pleasure of being a graduate student of Dr. Peskin's in the late 1980's and one of the things he taught us was how to write. Strangely, he never used Garfield as an example of superb historical writing or scholarship, but it is both. It is generally considered the finest biography of Garfield's life in print, and it is.
I picked it up on a lark one weekend and spent the entire weekend reading it. I couldn't put it down!! It is that good and the scholarship is great! A must-read for history buffs!

Academic biography at its best!
I am currently reading a biography of every President in order. For James Garfield the choice is easy (the only competition being the short bio from the American Presidents series) and thankfully Mr. Peskin has left almost no room for another book to take its place as the definitive Garfield biography.

In short, this is among the best "academic" Presidential biographies that I have read. Peskin has clearly done an exhaustive amount of research as well as having a thorough command of the time period in American history. The book is extremely well organized and Peskin's writing style is fluid and engaging. The book is adept at presenting in depth material in a way that is easy to understand and ideas and story threads follow logically through the book. It is possible that some may find the detail level a bit much but it is certainly appropriate for this type of biography and in my opinion Peskin has struck just the right balance of detail and related background information without losing focus on the main subject and important themes. I highly recommend this biography, it will clearly be the definitive Garfield biography for quite some time to come.