When reading biographies, I always remind myself that I cannot expect each one to be comparable to the masterpieces that Chernow’s biographies are (he has a new biography on Mark twain coming out in 2025, which I look forward to reading). This is easier when reading about time periods Chernow doesn’t usually cover, like the history/biography Philip and Alexander, since the amount of information we have about them is simply and inevitably less than we have access to about, say, Grant or Washington. With Destiny of the Republic covering such an extensively documented time period, though, it was harder to avoid comparisons. It is not just in comparison to Chernow’s biographies, though, that Millard’s book suffers. It is in scholarly rigor.
To be fair, I suspect she was attempting to write a rather different kind of book, which I should have recognized as soon as I saw it begins with a prologue. This is certainly an unusual choice for any nonfiction book, more so for a biography, and her particular prologue confuses the timeline of the entire narrative. But then, Millard does not seem concerned with presenting any of the events she covers in a comprehensive, chronological, or well-founded fashion, save for repeatedly emphasizing the unsanitary medical practices of the time which almost certainly were Garfield’s real slayers after his assassination. Perhaps this is my fault for expecting the book to be more, well, biographical in nature.
Even putting aside my desire for it to be a more comprehensive biography of Garfield, Destiny of the Republic is a somewhat confused book that never really lives up to its grandiose title, nor successfully makes its main argument. Events are routinely presented absent any apparent chronological organization, with most of the subjects’ lives told through expository flashbacks to rush the reader into the extremely limited timeframe with which Millard is concerned. It almost seems as if she would rather have only written a book about the assassination, or maybe about Alexander Graham Bell, who makes frequent appearances in the text despite having little impact on the main events. While there are references in the back of the book, there are no footnotes or endnotes within the text itself, which is more to the standard of historical fiction than it is to what purports to be historical nonfiction.
The general lack of detail, and the absence of in-text references, leaves the reader at many points to wonder just how much stock should be placed in Millard’s assertions throughout the book. Much of the study of history is built upon making inferences based on what records we retain, but there are enough records of this period of American history for those inferences to be fairly limited and well supported. Millard’s may well be so, but there is not enough information included in the text itself to judge for ourselves – the reader must take her assertions on faith. It’s one thing for a biographical attempt of a semi-legendary historical figure to be heavy on inferences and short on sources, but by the late nineteenth century, the excuses are running out.
It’s rather a shame, because Millard presents Garfield in a sympathetic (if sometimes confused and lacking in larger historical perspective) way. Especially in the leadup to his presidential nomination and in his early life, he comes across as the determined intellectual who follows a winding path to success by dint of consistent diligence and polymath tendencies. It takes until almost the end of the book for the reader to realize that Garfield was also a sociable fellow with a gift for bonhomie, not just oratory and rhetoric, which requires the reader to entirely reframe how he is presented in the beginning of the book. This early presentation almost led me to seek out a more extensive, actual biography on Garfield (probably Garfield by Peskin, considered the definitive work on the subject), though if I do end up reading it, it will be some time from now. Contrary to the pivotality implied by the title Destiny of the Republic, learning more about Garfield probably isn’t going to revolutionize my understanding of this period of American history.
Therein might lie the greatest reason for my discontent with Destiny of the Republic: it provides surface-level coverage of a period about which I’ve read somewhat extensively. Between Chernow’s Grant, about a dozen different Lincoln biographies, the complete Memoirs of Robert E Lee, several biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, and engineering-related examinations of people like Edison, Tesla, and Bell…plus reading many of Mark Twain’s books, and a few other sources…well, the point is that any treatment of the period would have needed to tie into and expand upon that already significant knowledge base. Managing expectations and my own preconceived notions aside, however, I still believe Destiny of the Republic suffers from significant structural and academic shortcomings. With apologies to Millard, there are better books out there to learn about these topics that her book only skims.
IGC Publishing 