Author Works - ​BOUTWELL: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy with Jeffrey Boutwell

"Boutwell the man was a hero, and BOUTWELL the book is a revelation, a gripping tale of how Americans struggled to make the promise of equality into something more than mere words." - Kermit Roosevelt, Author of The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story

Jeffrey Boutwell discusses his new book, BOUTWELL: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy (W.W. Norton, January 2025), a biography of family member George S. Boutwell, perhaps the most consequential American political figure you've never heard of.  During his career from 1839 to 1905, George Boutwell was Governor of Massachusetts, served in the U.S. House and Senate, was Treasury Secretary for Ulysses Grant and Commissioner of Revenue for Abraham Lincoln, helped create the Republican Party in the 1850s and forty years later opposed Republican Presidents William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt over their plans to annex the Philippines following the Spanish-American war.  Boutwell was instrumental in framing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, initiating the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and investigating white vigilante violence against Blacks in Mississippi in the 1870s.  For seven decades, George Boutwell sought to "redeem America's promise" through racial equality, economic equity, and the humane use of American power abroad.

About the Author

Jeffrey Boutwell is a writer and historian living in Columbia, Maryland, after a 40-year career in journalism, government, and international scientific policy.  He has written and spoken widely on issues ranging from nuclear weapons arms control to Middle East peace to environmental degradation and conflict. He's passionate about Shakespeare, Alpine skiing, improving US-Cuba relations, and road trips in his Mini Cooper. Jeffrey and George share a common ancestor, the indentured servant James Boutwell who emigrated in 1632 from England to Salem, Mass.  Learn more at jeffreyboutwell.com