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Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Author:
Candice Millard
Read by:
Paul Michael
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Unabridged Audiobook

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Ratings
Book
109
Narrator
16
Release Date
September 20, 2011
Duration
9 hours 48 minutes
Summary
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 didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’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 power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition 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.

Total Run Time: 10 hours.
Reviews
Profile Avatar Paula S. May 2022

I learned so much about President Garfield and the story surrounding his assignation and subsequent death due to poor medical care. It was an excellent story and the narrator was superb.

Profile Avatar EstherY.RN Mar 2025

A friend recommended this book, and I trust her recommendations. It is not one that I ever would have even considered on my own. I am so glad she recommended it. I listened to the audio version and was absolutely hooked. I couldn’t put it down. I learned so much history yet it read like a fiction book. I enjoyed learning how so many names and concepts all fit together within the same time and played a role in this true story. I read this in early 2024 when people are trying to get the presidential nominations from their party. It was fascinating to hear how that happened back when Garfield was nominated. I was not expecting to hear that presidential nominees were not supposed to give speeches or generally campaign for themselves! Heading into a presidential election, I think that would be kind of nice. I recommend this book to anybody who is slightly interested in politics, or in hearing about how cleanliness was embraced by the rest of the world and condemned by the American medical establishment until after Garfield’s death. There are so many things that went wrong in the weeks after he was shot!

Profile Avatar Dietmar B. Jun 2022

I read a lot. This is in my top 10 of all times. What a conjecture of relevant history. I am upset that I knew so little of this giant!

Profile Avatar Kacy W Aug 2017

This book was selected for a book club and very much outside of what I would normally read. The narrator did an excellent job telling the story of James Garfield. The book was well written and full of interesting facts about not only Garfield but his assassin Charles Guiteau, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, and others.

Profile Avatar James Brown Jan 2017

I was equally impressed with both the incredible book and the narration. I did not know anything about James Garfield but what a man. The description of the time, the people and the character of a nation was really fascinating and I would recommend this to anyone interested in U.S. History and a good story teller.

Profile Avatar Sam Pointer Jan 2016

Like the story of the Titanic I knew the ending before I began to book. I thought the author did a good job of making you feel like you were there at the time and like everyone else was following the news reports hoping beyond hope of a different outcome than you knew was historically possible

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Author: Candice Millard
Read by: Paul Michael
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