Customer Reviews

Garfield: A Biography

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

If you are looking strictly for facts about James Garfield, this is a good book on a President in which little is known or written about. This deals with his religious upbringing, Civil War experience, and his political career. As I was reading I always anticipated the author was leading me to the climax of the situation, but I found myself only stumbling into more tedious facts about Garfield. For example, there are a few references to Garfield being a strong backer of our money being linked to the gold standard. I was anticipating the book leading me into insight as to why Garfield felt so strongly about this and commentary he made concerning this. But the author doesn't delve into it.