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Overview
"Noble Cunningham's command of the material, his rich insights, and the vigorous flow of the narrative combine to make this the best work on Monroe ever written. Monroe's stature as statesman will certainly benefit from Cunningham's interpretation."—Robert Allen Rutland, author of The Presidency of James Madison"This is a superb book by our most seasoned and judicious historian of the political life of the early Republic. It is well-informed, lucid, concise, and full of insights, surely the final word for our time on the last presidency of the Virginia dynasty."—Ralph Ketcham, author of Framed for Posterity: The Enduring Philosophy of the Constitution
Author Biography: Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., is the Curators' Professor of History at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His other books include In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, which was a Main Selection of the History Book Club and also offered by the Book-of-the-Month Club.
Synopsis
Filled with new insights and fresh interpretations, this is the richest study yet published on the presidency of James Monroe, the last Revolutionary War hero to ascend to that august office.
Noble Cunningham's history of the fifth presidency (1817-25) shows a young nation beset by growing pains and led by a cautious politician who had neither the learning nor the intellect of Jefferson or Madison, but whose actions strengthened both the United States and the presidency itself.
Cunningham makes clear that the mislabelled "era of good feelings" had more than its share of crises, including those resulting from revolutions in Latin America, Spanish possession of Florida, the depression of 1819, and the controversy over slavery in Missouri.
Monroe, he shows, successfully defused these potentially explosive situations, most notably by negotiating the 1820 Missouri Compromise and announcing in 1823 what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, a document that still guides American policy in the western hemisphere.
Cunningham effectively places these actions within the context of Monroe's life and times and sheds new light on the inner workings of his cabinet and his relations with Congress. In addition, he features the prominent roles of two future presidents: John Quincy Adams as secretary of state and Andrew Jackson as the controversial general whose actions in the Seminole War created a headache for the administration.
Though substantially informed by previous scholarship, Cunningham writes largely from the abundant primary source materials of the era to provide an illuminating new look at a president and a nation on the brink of greatness.
This book is part of the American Presidency Series.
Times Literary Supplement
A splendid account. Few historians have succeeded so well in grasping the relationship between the constitutional structures of the United States and the ebb and flow of day-to-day politics.