A Consequential Life

"Over half a century ago historian Hugh T. Lefler viewed Swain as a North Carolina leader who perhaps merited full-length biographical treatment. A Consequential Life fills this perceived gap in the state's biographical literature. It not only details the life and work of the man who was arguably the state's most significant nineteenth-century leader; in the process it also recounts the history of the state's university in the three-plus decades when he was the focal point of its life"--