Tag: James Garfield

• Gentleman Boss

  “His political experience had been restricted almost exclusively to one state, and his knowledge of national and international affairs was limited to what any reasonably curious New Yorker might cull from local newspapers.” “His nomination had been entirely unexpected, and was commonly interpreted as a device for placating the most opprobrious forces within the GOP.”…

  Dec 22, 2016

  # America, Barack Obama, books, Chester A. Arthur, Donald Trump, Gilded Age, James Garfield, presidents, review

• Destiny of the Republic

  In Assassination Vacation, one of my all-time favorite books, Sarah Vowell calls the circumstances surrounding the Garfield assassination “an opera of arrogance, a spectacle of greed, a galling, appalling epic of egomania dramatizing the lust for pure power, shameless and raw.” After reading Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic, which details said circumstances, Vowell’s characterization now almost…

  Sep 25, 2014

  # books, Candice Millard, Charles Guiteau, history, James Garfield, presidents, review