This is an excellent and intensely interesting biography, the years during which Pierce was president being a part of the period of U.S. history in which I have a great interest. The book is fairly favorable to Pierce, and tends to excuse his failings. Basically Pierce's trouble is that his view of slavery is so abhorrent now, that a present day thinker cannot forgive such a benighted view. The book points out that at 48 Pierce was the youngest president up to that time, and that the fact that during his term there was no change in the Cabinet is unique in presidential annals. This book is just such a felicitous telling of so much--e.g., the chapter on Pierce's college yearsat Bowdoin (with Hawthorne a year behind him) is a classic. ( )