In "A Wicked War," Pennsylvania State University professor Amy S. Greenberg takes the Mexican-American War in a new direction where instead of just explaining the war that goes into great detail and depth about every memorable character, event, and plot such as James Polk, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, and the 1846 American invasion of Mexico. The Mexican-American War was characterized by false starts and atrocities and was the gateway to the Civil War that launched the career of the great Abraham Lincoln. Amy S. Greenberg told this brutal war as an action-packed story with the effect of being personally present in the war action. Greenberg begins this war journey with the handsome, very popular and intelligent Henry Clay on a Valentine's Day in 1844 with the description of increasing income in the United States by purchasing Valentine's Day cards. What does Valentine's Day have to do with Henry Clay? Well, as the founder of the preeminent Whig Party, “a political organization dedicated to the growth of American business” (p. 4), Henry Clay was the public face of American commerce. It was Whig legislation, "conceptualized by Clay, that allowed American card manufacturers to compete with British imports, that financed the roads and bridges over which thousands of valentines traveled" (p. 7). With this increase in economic wealth Clay became a popular man. He soon led the charge in the war against Great Britain in 1812 and helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent. His Missouri Compromise of 1820 purported to maintain balance among slaves, which further increased his popularity. “Clay's popularity was not due to his outward appearance, but to what he had done to this nation” (p.11). He called himself a self-made man who hated slavery. Clay was an "American original, charming and magnetic to a fault, but far from perfect" (p.15). Clay gave grades to both