A definitive life of the flawed man who succeeded to the American presidency after Lincoln's assassination. Politically shrewd but fatally unable to adapt to new political realities, Andrew Johnson presided, disastrously, over the tumultuous first years of Reconstruction. In this provocative account, Hans Trefousse gives us and "a brilliant, compassionate portrait of a dynamic era of social change and national healing, and of the tragic failure of an American leader and " ( Library Journal ).