Preview
  • President Garfield

  • From Radical to Unifier
  • By: CW Goodyear
  • Narrated by: Fred Sanders
  • Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (87 ratings)

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President Garfield

By: CW Goodyear
Narrated by: Fred Sanders
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Publisher's summary

An “ambitious, thorough, supremely researched” (The Washington Post) biography of the extraordinary, tragic life of America’s twentieth president—James Garfield.

In “the most comprehensive Garfield biography in almost fifty years” (The Wall Street Journal), C.W. Goodyear charts the life and times of one of the most remarkable Americans ever to win the Presidency. Progressive firebrand and conservative compromiser; Union war hero and founder of the first Department of Education; Supreme Court attorney and abolitionist preacher; mathematician and canalman; crooked election-fixed and clean-government champion; Congressional chieftain and gentleman-farmer; the last president to be born in a log cabin; the second to be assassinated. James Abram Garfield was all these things and more.

Over nearly two decades in Congress during a polarized era—Reconstruction and the Gilded Age—Garfield served as a peacemaker in a Republican Party and America defined by divisions. He was elected to overcome them. He was killed while trying to do so.

President Garfield is American history at its finest. It is about an impoverished boy working his way from the frontier to the Presidency; a progressive statesman, trying to raise a more righteous, peaceful Republic out of the ashes of civil war; the tragically imperfect course of that reformation, and the man himself; a martyr-President, whose death succeeded in nudging the country back to cleaner, calmer politics.

©2023 CW Goodyear (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio
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What listeners say about President Garfield

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Perhaps Among Our Greatest of Presidents Based on Potential

Learned of the potential for greatness of this too short lived - and somewhat unknown - U.S. President, and our nation’s loss as a result

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Great bio of Garfield’s political career

A great example of Garfield as a human being with complicated but compassionate triumphs. The assassination is not a large focus which can be read about in other books but overall, this book takes on the character of the man.

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I learned a lot about a forgotten president

I liked all the detail about Garfield. I learned a lot about him and gained a lot of respect for him. he was a great man who could have done much more if he had not been assinated.

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Well-structured

A good introduction to a time period that I used to think was irrelevant

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Sad

What might have been. I didn’t know much about Garfield; now I do. We need another Garfield now!

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Underrated

James Garfield was like a HOF NFL player whose career was cut short by gruesome injury. This book brilliantly captures the impactful life of our most underrated president. What a great man… what an enjoyable read.

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Garfield, untold

This book was good and informative. But, the ending left you wanting more about his legacy.

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Splendid biography of interesting life & times

This is an excellent biography of an interesting statesman & his times. There is very much to admire about James Garfield, from his humble origins to his Civil War exploits to his congressional career & brief but significant presidency. But he was human with flaws & C.W. Goodyear addresses these fairly. He also does justice to Garfield’s political peers, especially James Blaine, Roscoe Conkling, Chester Arthur & Rutherford Hayes. The issues of Reconstruction & the Gilded Age are well-presented too. The narration is well done although there are a LOT of oral edits where what sounds like another voice reads passages. These do not significantly affect the continuity of the presentation, however. The writing & pacing are excellent & I look forward to more from the author. Highly recommend.

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Balanced and Thorough

This is an excellent review of Garfield’s life. It is not a hagiography as is a certain more popular book on the same topic. I learned a lot about the credit mobiler scandal, the fierce rivalry between roscoe Conkling and George Blaine and the spoils system. Garfield coming from such humble beginnings to such heights is amazing. The treatment of the shooting and subsequent illness was very good. Slow in places but still highly recommended and welcome.

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Insightful story of Garfield's life

17 years before I finished this book, I visited Garfield's home in Mentor, Ohio. It was not open on that day, and my knowledge of the one who built the house was not much greater after my visit. I knew that he commanded troops during the Civil War and that he served in Congress and that he was the second president to fall in an assassination. I listened to a book several years ago that underscored the poor care President Garfield received after the shooting and that led, however ignorantly, to his death. Aside from those bare outlines, I knew little about Garfield himself. C. W. Goodyear's compelling biography filled in those bare outlines. Garfield, for all his faults, emerges as that rare political figure who sought to be honorable and decent to all with whom he served, even those political bosses like Roscoe Conkling and Thomas Platt who despised him. His contributions in the major political dramas of his time, like the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson and the administration of President Grant, come into sharp focus in this book. The irony that Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln was an eyewitness to President Garfield's shooting ties that event to the only previous presidential assassination, that of Abraham Lincoln. The narration is clear and evenhanded, providing a comfortable listening experience. As with all audio books, I miss the photos and other illustrations from the print edition. Highly informative and educational.

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