A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
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Published Sep 2011
368 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back.
But the shot didn't kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil. The unhinged assassin's half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation's future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his condition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.
Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.
Edgar Awards, 2012
"Starred Review. Moving set pieces...and sharply etched sketches of Blaine, the overwhelmed Arthur and larger portraits of the truly impressive Garfield and the thoroughly insane Guiteau make for compulsive reading. Superb American history." - Kirkus
"His death didn't greatly harm the nation, and Millard's story doesn't add much to previous understanding, but it's hard to imagine its being better told." - Publishers Weekly
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: © Paul Versluis
Candice Millard is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic. Her book Hero of the Empire was named Amazon's number one history book of 2016. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three children.
Link to Candice Millard's Website
Name Pronunciation
Candice Millard: mill-ARD (Last syllable rhymes with "hard.")
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