When Maine’s James G. Blaine mocked the “grandiloquent swell” and “overpowering turkey-gobbler strut” of New York’s Roscoe Conkling in 1866, he ignited a bitter feud that dominated American politics for the next two decades. Conkling and Blaine fought each other at political conventions, on Capitol Hill, and in the behind-the-scenes struggle for power that consumed the presidency of James A. Garfield and stoked the madness that led to his assassination. Along the way, they earned the ire of reformers and figured in some of the day’s biggest scandals. Their feud highlights the challenges faced by politicians in an era of extreme partisanship and charts the course of the Republican Party from the shadow of Lincoln’s assassination to the rise of Theodore Roosevelt. This is the story of two talented, colorful, ambitious, and flawed figures who personified the politics of the Gilded Age and whose battle for dominance raises questions about politics and leadership that still endure.