Andrew Johnson: A Biography - Softcover

Trefousse, Hans L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393317420 ISBN 13: 9780393317428

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997

Synopsis

A definitive life of the flawed man who succeeded to the American presidency after Lincoln's assassination.

Politically shrewd but fatally unable to adapt to new political realities, Andrew Johnson presided, disastrously, over the tumultuous first years of Reconstruction. In this provocative account, Hans Trefousse gives us "a brilliant, compassionate portrait of a dynamic era of social change and national healing, and of the tragic failure of an American leader" (Library Journal).

About this title

About the Author:

Hans L. Trefousse is professor of history at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His other books include The Radical Republicans, a pathbreaking history of Reconstruction.

From Library Journal:

Known for his Carl Schurz: A Biography (LJ 2/15/82), Trefousse delivers the first Johnson study in years, a definitive assessment of his career and presidency. Johnson's papers and other sources reveal his fatal idealization of the agrarian utopia, his fierce advocacy of strict Constitutional constructionism, and his imprudent insistence upon the Republican party's adoption of his views on race. Trefousse demonstrates that Johnson, because of his upbringing, was out of step with the great changes emerging at the end of the Civil War. His stubborn attachment to his increasingly archaic views was responsible for his political and military success, but also for his impeachment. A brilliant, compassionate portrait of a dynamic era of social change and national healing, and of the tragic failure of an American leader. Not to be missed.
- Susan E. Parker, Harvard Law Sch. Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0393317420
• ISBN 13: 9780393317428
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464