The book does a nice job of describing Pierce's ascent to political power, from his base in New Hampshire. Not many knew who he was back then either. About this Item: Oxford University Press, Incorporated. And rather than see personal weakness as the source of his missteps in the White House, I attribute Pierce's most fateful political decisions to his obsession with preserving the unity of the Democratic Party. How, I wonder, did the freshman Lincoln ever get mixed up with these people?. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.
It was an era when Americans were passionately involved in politics, when local concerns drove national policy, and when momentous political events--like the Annexation of Texas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act--rocked the country. His disdain for abolitionists and the changing tide of views towards slavery was his ultimate undoing. That alone should make you feel sorry for him, but as I said before because of his views on Really well written short biography about a President I knew little about. In his zeal to hold the fractious Democ This is a solid biography of Franklin Pierce, often rated as in the bottom tier of American presidents. As the political and social events of the mid-1850s continue their slide toward what was the inevitability of civil war, Franklin Pierce's name is added to the list of men who failed to stop the volcanic eruption and whose reputation was marred in the process. As I write this review, Donald Trump is the current U.
Franklin Pierce was the fourteenth president of the United States 1853—1857 , a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. The book did a great job of explaining his life, his presidency, and they way he conducted himself as a man. Amid this contentious political activity, the Whig Party continuously strove to unite North and South, emerging as the nation's last great hope to prevent secession. Connecting readers with great books since 1972. His personal life was very tragic. And historians seem to blame each one in their turn for failure to stop the slipping decline. Spine creases, wear to binding and pages from reading.
He governed under a strict Jacksonian philosophy. This book was very informative and detailed about the Pierce's life. Holt, a leading historian of nineteenth-century partisan politics, argues that in the wake of the Whig collapse, Pierce was consumed by an obsessive drive to unify his splintering party rather than the roiling country. About this Item: Louisiana State Univ Pr. The Democrats dominated the state, and General Pierce held sway over the state and the party. The book is adequate but will likely leave readers without a grasp of the spirit of the time or the man it is based on.
Unfortunately he wasn't fighting to end the institution, he was fighting to end the discussion of slavery as a political issue that the federal government should ever address. Each biography is written by a different scholar to allow different perspectives on the American presidency. How such a significant event could be so glossed over by the author cost him a full star from me. About this Item: Louisiana State Univ Pr. Holt does of good job of being objective, considering what he had to work with.
He was a mostly forgettable legislator. I find the books in this series appealing in part because, while I am very interested in life stories, I rarely have the attention span devote to standard biographies which can run 800 pages in length or more. Calhoun, author of The Presidency of Ulysses S. If your order is placed after the 11 a. However, his choices of other Young Americans to serve on the international stage, men over confident and ignorant of the diplomatic tact needed to work in the intercultural arena resulted in some major headaches abroad. Grounding his history in a nuanced retelling of the pre-1860 story, Michael F.
He drubbed Winfield Scott in the presidential election to become the country's fourteenth president. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. This made him favorable to many yet deplored by many as well. Important but occasionally tedious analysis of a most critical period in our history. Breckinridge in the slaveholding South.
Some of these less successful one-term presidents do not capture the attention of historians and offer few biographies. The remaining member of this group was by far the most important, if now the most forgotten, the Connecticut Whig Truman Smith, who was the de facto national chairman of the Whig party in the 1840s. Rather it has been to explain why Pierce did what he did. Holt argues that Pierce's support of 1854' Kansas-Nebraska Act helped trigger the expansion of slavery into the territories. Also, there's a bit of rambling in the middle th I read this hoping to dispel the arguments of his detractors.
He preferred hiking and hunting to studying. Holt's extraordinary thoroughness is awe-inspiring. Well, to answer that question, it would require its own book. Most are penned by very highly regarded historians of the era, and that is certainly the case here. The books are a wonderful resource particularly for exposure to the less popular presidents. Tthe conversation will examine the role of slavery, economics, political parties, discourse, and irrational motives.