{"product_id":"the-unexpected-president","title":"The Unexpected President","description":"\u003cb\u003eWhen President James Garfield was shot in 1881, nobody expected Vice President Chester A. Arthur to become a strong and effective president, a courageous anti-corruption reformer, and an early civil rights advocate.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDespite his promising start as a young man, by his early fifties Chester A. Arthur was known as the crooked crony of New York machine boss Roscoe Conkling. For years Arthur had been perceived as unfit to govern, not only by critics and the vast  majority of his fellow citizens but by his own conscience. As President  James A. Garfield struggled for his life, Arthur knew better than his detractors that he failed to meet the high standard a president must uphold.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And yet, from the moment President Arthur took office, he  proved to be not just honest but brave, going up against the very  forces that had controlled him for decades. He surprised everyone -- and  gained many enemies -- when he swept house and took on corruption, civil  rights for blacks, and issues of land for Native Americans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A mysterious young woman deserves much of the credit for Arthur's remarkable transformation. Julia Sand, a bedridden New Yorker, wrote  Arthur nearly two dozen letters urging him to put country over party, to find \"the spark of true nobility\" that lay within him. At a time when  women were barred from political life, Sand's letters inspired Arthur to transcend his checkered past--and changed the course of American  history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This beautifully written biography tells the dramatic, untold story of a virtually forgotten American president. It is the tale  of a machine politician and man-about-town in Gilded Age New York who  stumbled into the highest office in the land, only to rediscover his better self when his nation needed him.","brand":"Oxfordbookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44787386515635,"sku":"9780306922701","price":1092.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0718\/4164\/4723\/files\/blk_imp_17477370929780306922701.jpg?v=1762818645","url":"https:\/\/oxfordbookstore.com\/products\/the-unexpected-president","provider":"Oxfordbookstore ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}