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The unexpected president the life and times of Chester A. Arthur

"An exquisitely written, comprehensive biography of Chester A. Arthur, our virtually forgotten 21st president, who unexpectedly occupied the nation's highest office and surprised everyone with his moral character and reformist policies"--Provided by publisher.

Main Author: Greenberger, Scott S. (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York, NY : Da Capo, 2017.
Edition: First edition.
Subjects:
Arthur, Chester Alan, > 1829-1886.
Arthur, Chester Alan, > 1829-1886 > Political and social views.
Presidents > United States > Biography.
United States > Politics and government > 1881-1885.
Biographies.
Summary: "An exquisitely written, comprehensive biography of Chester A. Arthur, our virtually forgotten 21st president, who unexpectedly occupied the nation's highest office and surprised everyone with his moral character and reformist policies"--Provided by publisher.
"When President James Garfield was shot, no one in the United States was more dismayed than his Vice President, Chester Arthur. For years Arthur had been perceived as unfit to govern, not only by critics and his fellow citizens but by his own conscience. From his promising start, Arthur had become a political hack, a shill for Roscoe Conkling, and Arthur knew better even than his detractors that he failed to meet the high standard a president must uphold. And yet, from the moment President Arthur took office, he proved to be not just honest but courageous, going up against the very forces that had controlled him for decades. Arthur surprised everyone--and gained many enemies--when he swept house and courageously took on corruption, civil rights for blacks, and issues of land for Native Americans. His short presidency proved to be a turning point of American history, in many ways a preview of our own times, and is a sterling example of how someone can 'rise to the occasion.' This beautifully written biography tells the dramatic, untold story of a virtually forgotten American president, a machine politician and man-about-town in Gilded Age New York who stumbled into the highest office in the land only to rediscover his better self, right when his nation needed him"--Provided by publisher.
Physical Description: x, 304 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-290) and index.
ISBN: 9780306823893 (hardback)
0306823896 (hardback)
Author Notes: Scott S. Greenberger is the coauthor, with former Senator Tom Daschle and Jeanne Lambrew, of the New York Times bestseller Critical: What We Can Do about the Health Care Crisis . Greenberger is currently the executive editor of Stateline , a news website funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts that covers state politics and policy for dozens of US newspapers. He was a newspaper reporter for twelve years, first at the Austin American-Statesman and then at the Boston Globe , and has also written for the New York Times , the Washington Post, GQ, Glamour, Washington Monthly, Moment magazine, and Washington City Paper . He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.

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