James Conroy is the author of Our One Common Country: Abraham Lincoln and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference of 1865, and Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime, co-winner of the 2017 Gilder Lerhman Lincoln Prize and winner of the 2017 Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Prize. Conroy speaks extensively and has been featured on C-Span Book TV. He resides on Boston’s South Shore.

• Prologue1. It Was More Than I Expected2. With Very Decent Respect3. True Republicanism4. Men of 17765. Notions of Equality6. Grumble Who Will7. Chiefly of the Sneering Kind8. A French Way of Cooking Them9. Unfinished Persons10. I Found It Detestable11. By No Means Dangerous12. This Will Be the Cause of War13. Madame Eve14. Highly Embellished With Indian Finery15. Oriental Luxury and Taste16. Age Has Some Effect Upon Him17. Chained to a Writing Table18. The Hermit of MonticelloEpilogueSelected BibliographyNotes

Those familiar with his previous book, Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime, will welcome Conroy’s present foray into an earlier “civil war”—a war between the dominant Jeffersonian Republicans and the minority political party at the time, the Federalists.