When the Library of Congress catalogued a life of Andrew Dickson White under biographies of U.S. diplomats, historians, and college teachers, the designations college presidents and statesmen could well have been added, for White was all of these. The son of successful businessman and banker Horace White and Clara Dickson White, White was born in Homer, New York, on 7 November 1832. When he was seven the family moved to Syracuse where White attended public and private schools. He studied at Geneva (now Hobart) College, then Yale University, from which he was graduated in 1853, having been elected editor of the Yale Literary Magazine, member of Phi Beta Kappa, and recipient of the Clark, Yale Literary, and De Forest prizes. His campaign for the editorship of the "Lit" was based largely on an abolitionist platform that reflected what was for White an enduring and passionate issue. A lifelong interest in...