Candice Millard
James A. 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, 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 didnâ€™t kill Garfield. The drama of what hapÂ­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turÂ­moil. The unhinged assassinâ€™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 powerâ€”over his administration, over the nationâ€™s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his conÂ­dition 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.
History,Nonfiction,Biography,North American Hi...,American History,Politics,Presidents,Politics,Historical,Audiobook,Crime,True Crime,Biography Memoir
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President