Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

A Booklist Notable Book of 2012

The extraordinary New York Times bestselling account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from bestselling author of The River of Doubt, Candice Millard.  
 
James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, a renowned congressman, and a reluctant presidential candidate who took on the nation's corrupt political establishment. But four months after Garfield's inauguration in 1881, he was shot in the back by a deranged office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Garfield survived the attack, but become the object of bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles for power—over his administration, over the nation's future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic brings alive a forgotten chapter of U.S. history.

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• The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
• The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur
• The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People Volume 2
• O Pioneers!
• Portrait of America, Volume II
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
• Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill
• Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration