I found this to be the most well-written and interesting of the books in this series that I have read so far. The author puts his subject into historical perspective (partly out of necessity because little is actually known about his inner life and he did very little in the way of presidenting) and he writes with a great deal of wit. In his final summation, he says that Arthur's reputation neither increased nor diminished after he left office, rather he just disappeared. A good book to read in conjunction with watching The Gilded Age. It is noteworthy that Arthur, a political hack who had only ever been appointed to things, was the president who signed the first legislation creating the civil service. A Nixon to China moment in U.S. history. ( )

A admirable biography that makes the most of a subject that the author admits is one of the most boring, as far as presidents go. Arthur seems to genuinely not have wanted to be president. ( )

It's difficult to believe that anybody could make Chet Arthur interesting, but Karabell succeeds in spades. And moreover, he makes a fairly sturdy case that he was the right man at the right time for the job. His approach is that, unlikely as it may seem, just as only Nixon could go to China, only Arthur, the product of the spoils system, could lead the nation on its first baby steps toward getting rid of the spoils system, though admittedly he led from behind. I ended up liking the "Gentleman Boss" pretty well after this read and decided that we could use a few more reluctant presidents who served their time and were quite content to leave the office with a record of modest accomplishment. ( )

One of the least remembered presidents is ironically sidelined in his own book; understandably as he ordered his papers destroyed following his death. A difficult book to write I imagine with so little information to go on, nonetheless Karabell does an admirably job of capturing the politics of the day and seem not all to different from events today. ( )

Chester Alan Arthur by Zachary Karabell

★★★

President Chester Alan Arthur is one of those presidents that when mentioned in general public gets a “Who? He was a president?” Yeah, so they can’t all do great, memorable things. Poor guy. And when seeing how small this biography is, it doesn’t help his case – although it is mentioned in Editor’s Notes that this book is “compact for the busy reader, lucid enough for the student, and authoritative enough for the scholar.”

So who was this guy? Well, he took over for Garfield after his assassination. Arthur didn’t want to be president and no one expected much of him. He did some good stuff in his time, mostly went with the flow, and miraculously stayed out of trouble and allegation. He was an interesting president in his own right, just a sadly forgotten one. I enjoyed this book and I think it gave a good, broad overview of this president and his life. However, I still would have liked further details – it just seemed to lack so much. So much like the president, neither good nor bad, I give this book a similar judgment – putting it right down the middle in my rating.
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