Description
Book SynopsisThis is a joint biography of Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the most prominent of the second generation of American statesmen, from 1812 until 1850. It is at the same time a history of the America of the period: its political style and character, political ambition and reputation, success and failure, and ideas and interests. The three statesmen make a startling contrast - Webster, the staunch New England defender of the Union, Clay, first a `war hawk'' and later a populist politician, and Calhoun, the foremost advocate of Southern separatism and slavery. Their political lives were intertwined during much of this period.
Trade Review`Merrill Peterson has given us a thorough and scholarly account of these three giants and the grand debates that consumed their lives.' The Book Review/Los Angeles Times
`Elaborate and learned new study...Densely packed with facts and closely focused, The Great Triumvirate provides a richly rewarding account of party conflict in the antebellum period.' The Boston Sunday Globe
`His details enable us to recognise how little the practices of parliamentary democracy have changed ... Mr Peterson's inclusiveness is valuable, too, in its attention to lesser figures, men who became footnotes after they died, but whose opinions and search for responsiveness were decisive while they lived.' The New Yorker
`We are in debt to Merrill Peterson. Basing his work on a careful combing of the original sources, he has made a distinguished contribution to the study of American history.' New York Times Book Reviews
`Mr Peterson imparts a good deal of excitement to the events of the past. He admires his subject but judges them harshly as well.' Washington Times
`Without invoking grand theories, without statistics, and with only an occasional generalization of any kind, Merrill Peterson simply tells an interesting and momentous story.' Book World
`A "thorough and scholarly" account of three enduring symbols of congressional leadership.' L.A.Times
