Merrill D. Peterson is Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Virginia. A winner of the Bancroft Prize and a former Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of numerous books, including The Jefferson Image in the American Mind and Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography.
"A remarkably vivid picture of American politics as a post-Founding
Fathers generation fought together--and ultimately one against
another--to save the Union as each faction conceived
it."--Publishers Weekly
"A thorough and scholarly account of three enduring symbols of
congressional leadership."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"In this ambitious and impressively executed book, Merrill Peterson
offers a work that is both a collective biography and a history of
political leadership and public policy in the United States from
the beginning of the War of 1812 to the early 1850s....The work
succeeds engagingly in blending the biographical approach to
history with the analytical study of public policy."--Georgia
Historical Quarterly
"A well-done, compact biography of three inextricably intertwined
leaders."--Kirkus Reviews
"Particularly welcome because only a few historians have been
successful in pulling together this period....Basing his work on a
careful combing of the original sources, [Peterson] has made a
distinguished contribution to the study of American history."--The
New York Times Book Review
"[An] elaborate and learned study....A careful charting of these
difficult, and sometimes acrimonious, interrelationships."--The
Boston Globe
"[Peterson's] details enable us to recognize how little the
practices of parliamentary democracy have changed."--The New
Yorker
"An unusual alchemy--one part history, one part biography--by a
leading American historian who argues that these three men...were
the match of the founding generation of Americans."--The Wall
Street Journal
"[A] well-crafted triple biography....Peterson imparts a good deal
of excitement to the events of the past."--New York City
Tribune
"Narrative history at its best, scholarly and a model of fairness,
but at the same time full of life--much better reading than most
modern fiction."--Don E. Fehrenbacher, Stanford University
"An ambitious work by one of our country's foremost
scholars...indispensable to the study of American political
development....A book that will surely stand as a classic in
historical analysis."--Robert W. Johannsen, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign
"Marvelous....A rich and wonderfully compelling treatment of
politics and policy in antebellum America....A master work,
insightful, highly readable, replete with fresh interpretations and
based on exhaustive research."--John Niven, The Claremont Graduate
School
"A high narrative history of the type we seldom see anymore....It
is history written out of the raw stuff of the historical record
itself."--The World & I
"[Peterson] tells his story effectively, and readers looking for
dramatic, well-written, and carefully documented summaries of the
major political events of this period will find his book quite
useful....Peterson has supplied us with a richly detailed narrative
of the interactions of three of America's most famous political
leaders."--Irving H. Bartlett, New England Quarterly
"Likely to remain the definitive work on Daniel Webster, Henry Clay
and John Calhoun."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"In this finely crafted narrative, Peterson presents a compelling
and informing collective biography of the Great Triumvirate....A
fine work by a master historian. All students of nineteenth-century
American history and biography will value it."--Indiana Magazine of
History
"[A] serious, substantial work that instructs as well as
delights....lay readers...will rightfully be drawn to [it]."--Civil
War History
"A remarkably vivid picture of American politics as a post-Founding Fathers generation fought together--and ultimately one against another--to save the Union as each faction conceived it."--Publishers Weekly "A thorough and scholarly account of three enduring symbols of congressional leadership."--Los Angeles Times Book Review "In this ambitious and impressively executed book, Merrill Peterson offers a work that is both a collective biography and a history of political leadership and public policy in the United States from the beginning of the War of 1812 to the early 1850s....The work succeeds engagingly in blending the biographical approach to history with the analytical study of public policy."--Georgia Historical Quarterly "A well-done, compact biography of three inextricably intertwined leaders."--Kirkus Reviews "Particularly welcome because only a few historians have been successful in pulling together this period....Basing his work on a careful combing of the original sources, [Peterson] has made a distinguished contribution to the study of American history."--The New York Times Book Review "[An] elaborate and learned study....A careful charting of these difficult, and sometimes acrimonious, interrelationships."--The Boston Globe "[Peterson's] details enable us to recognize how little the practices of parliamentary democracy have changed."--The New Yorker "An unusual alchemy--one part history, one part biography--by a leading American historian who argues that these three men...were the match of the founding generation of Americans."--The Wall Street Journal "[A] well-crafted triple biography....Peterson imparts a good deal of excitement to the events of the past."--New York City Tribune "Narrative history at its best, scholarly and a model of fairness, but at the same time full of life--much better reading than most modern fiction."--Don E. Fehrenbacher, Stanford University "An ambitious work by one of our country's foremost scholars...indispensable to the study of American political development....A book that will surely stand as a classic in historical analysis."--Robert W. Johannsen, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign "Marvelous....A rich and wonderfully compelling treatment of politics and policy in antebellum America....A master work, insightful, highly readable, replete with fresh interpretations and based on exhaustive research."--John Niven, The Claremont Graduate School "A high narrative history of the type we seldom see anymore....It is history written out of the raw stuff of the historical record itself."--The World & I "[Peterson] tells his story effectively, and readers looking for dramatic, well-written, and carefully documented summaries of the major political events of this period will find his book quite useful....Peterson has supplied us with a richly detailed narrative of the interactions of three of America's most famous political leaders."--Irving H. Bartlett, New England Quarterly "Likely to remain the definitive work on Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John Calhoun."--The Philadelphia Inquirer "In this finely crafted narrative, Peterson presents a compelling and informing collective biography of the Great Triumvirate....A fine work by a master historian. All students of nineteenth-century American history and biography will value it."--Indiana Magazine of History "[A] serious, substantial work that instructs as well as delights....lay readers...will rightfully be drawn to [it]."--Civil War History
Peterson's new work extends the rich canvas of early American history offered in Adams and Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation and The Jefferson Image in the American Mind. Its ambience evokes an entire era, and it portrays in terms of their related and separate approaches to the most challenging issues of their time (form the War of 1812 to the year all three died: 1852) the trio of regional political giants who became known as the Great Triumvirate. Henry Clay of pioneer Kentucky was a young ``war hawk'' until the rise of the slavery issue, inextricably tied to the Union's westward growth and conflicting viewpoints in the North and South, brought him into decades-long struggles with the ``Yankee Demosthenes,'' Daniel Webster, and the flamboyant South Carolinian, John C. Calhoun. Through banking crises, election after election, the 1837 Panic under Andrew Jackson, the Missouri Compromise, the Mexican War and much more, each made deals with the others while failing time and again to become president. Here is a remarkably vivid picture of American politics as a post-Founding Fathers generation fought togetherand ultimately one against anotherto save the Union as each faction conceived it. Illustrations. (October)
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