LibGuides: Presidency: Books On Presidents

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41: Inside the Presidency of George H. W. Bush Although it lasted only a single term, the presidency of George H. W. Bush was an unusually eventful one, encompassing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Panama, the Persian Gulf War, and contentious confirmation hearings over Clarence Thomas and John Tower. Bush has said that to understand the history of his presidency, while "the documentary record is vital," interviews with members of his administration "add the human side that those papers can never capture." This book draws on interviews with senior White House and Cabinet officials conducted under the auspices of the Bush Oral History Project (a cooperative effort of the University of Virginia's Miller Center and the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation) to provide a multidimensional portrait of the first President Bush and his administration. Typically, interviews explored officials' memories of their service with President Bush and their careers prior to joining the administration. Interviewees also offered political and leadership lessons they had gleaned as eyewitnesses to and shapers of history. The contributors to 41--all seasoned observers of American politics, foreign policy, and government institutions--examine how George H. W. Bush organized and staffed his administration, operated on the international stage, followed his own brand of Republican conservatism, handled legislative affairs, and made judicial appointments. A scrupulously objective analysis of oral history, primary documents, and previous studies, 41 deepens the historical record of the forty-first president and offers fresh insights into the rise of the "new world order" and its challenges.
Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency An insightful, prodigiously researched, and wonderfully readable account of Bill Clinton's first term in office. It shows how a well-meaning but naïve new president failed to assert true leadership in his first two years, and then illustrates how, in an astonishing act of self-reinvention, the president turned defeat into victory. Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency is a gripping tale of hubris and redemption--and a chronicle of one of the most dramatic reversals of fortune in modern American politics.
Exit With Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan Few presidents have sparked as much interest in recent years as Ronald Reagan, already the subject of a large number of biographies and specialized subjects. This biography, based on recent research into the Reagan archives and synthesis of the large memoir literature, explores the shaping of his values and beliefs during his childhood in the American heartland, his leadership of the American conservative movement, and his successful political career culminating in the first two-term presidency since Dwight Eisenhower. Pemberton finds Reagan's personal career and ability to understand and communicate with the American people admirable, but finds many of the long-term effects of his presidency harmful.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years, 1939-1945 Having guided the nation through the worst economic crisis in its history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt by 1939 was turning his attention to a world on the brink of war. The second part of Roger Daniels's biography focuses on FDR's growing mastery in foreign affairs. Relying on FDR's own words to the American people and eyewitness accounts of the man and his accomplishments, Daniels reveals a chief executive orchestrating an immense wartime effort. Roosevelt had effective command of military and diplomatic information and unprecedented power over strategic military and diplomatic affairs. He simultaneously created an arsenal of democracy that armed the Allies while inventing the United Nations intended to ensure a lasting postwar peace. FDR achieved these aims while expanding general prosperity, limiting inflation, and continuing liberal reform despite an increasingly conservative and often hostile Congress. Although fate robbed him of the chance to see the victory he had never doubted, events in 1944 assured him that the victory he had done so much to bring about would not be long delayed. A compelling reconsideration of Roosevelt the president and campaigner, The War Years, 1939-1945 provides new views and vivid insights about a towering figure--and six years that changed the world.
John F. Kennedy The youngest man to become president, John F. Kennedy is best known for his charming and lively personality and for his assassination. A natural politician, he won election after election, rising quickly through the ranks of Congress until finally being elected president. While in office, Kennedy fought for civil rights, established the Peace Corps, and succeeded in signing a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. Despite events such as the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the construction of the Berlin Wall, what is most often remembered about Kennedy's short presidency is the tragic way in which it ended, and the many conspiracies surrounding his assassination.
Perspectives on the Legacy of George W. Bush Opinions of the Presidency of George W. Bush and his perceived legacy seem to exist only at the extremes. From the contentious outcome of the 2000 election, to the attacks on September 11, to the ongoing War in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the efforts to transform major domestic policies, and culminating with the financial crisis of 2008, it is little wonder that the name George W. Bush tends not to evoke lukewarm opinion. During his time in office, Bush obtained the highest approval ratings of any sitting president, but also the lowest. Scholars and other observers of the Bush Presidency have been similarly divided. Across the board, the presidency of George W. Bush raises questions that invite challenges to political scientists, scholarly questions of significant general interest. The authors in this volume begin the process of addressing some of these questions, with essays that cover an array of issues related to his presidency, and the legacy it leaves. This collection of essays presented at the Mount Union College Symposium on the Legacy of George W. Bush, seeks to provide some balance, offering some initial assessments of the consequences of this controversial president and his eventful tenure in office.
Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy Prophet from Plains covers Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter's major achievements and setbacks in light of what has been at once his greatest asset and flaw: his stubborn, faith-driven integrity. Carter's remarkable post presidency is still in the making; however, he has already redefined the role for all who follow him. Frye Gaillard, who wrote extensively about Carter at the Charlotte Observer, was among the first to take seriously the Carter post presidency and to challenge many accepted conclusions about his term in office. Carter was not an irresolute president, says Gaillard, but rather one so certain of his own rectitude that he misjudged the importance of "selling" himself to America. Ranging across the highs and lows of the Carter presidency, Gaillard covers the energy crisis, the Iran hostage situation, the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal and other treaties, and the new diplomatic emphasis on human rights. Carter stuck with his established priorities once out of office but was far more effective outside the strictures of presidential politics. Gaillard's coverage of this period includes Carter's friendship with Gerald R. Ford, his work through the Carter Center on disease control and election monitoring, and his association with Habitat for Humanity. Prophet from Plains locates Carter in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets who took uncompromising stands for peace and justice. Resisting the role of an above-the-fray elder statesman, Carter has thrust himself into international controversies in ways that some find meddlesome and others heroic.
Real Life at the White House: Two Hundred Years of Daily Life at America's Most Famous Residence
Republican Vision of John Tyler Historians have generally ranked John Tyler as one of the least successful chief executives, despite achievements such as the Webster Ashburton treaty, which heralded improved relations with Great Britain, and the annexation of Texas. Why did Tyler pursue what appears to have been a politically self-destructive course with regard to both his first party, the Democrats, and his later political alliance, the Whigs? Monroe has set out to explain the beliefs that led to Tyler's resigning his Senate seat and exercising politically suicidal presidential vetoes as well as examines the crises Tyler faced during his term in the House: the Panic of 1819, the financially tottering national bank, and the Missouri debate.
Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War In Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, accomplished foreign relations historian David F. Shmitz provides students of US history and the Vietnam era with an up-to-date analysis of Nixon's Vietnam policy in a brief and accessible book that addresses the main controversies of the Nixon years. President Richard Nixon's first presidential term oversaw the definitive crucible of the Vietnam War. Nixon came into office seeking the kind of decisive victory that had eluded President Johnson, and went about expanding the war, overtly and covertly, in order to uphold a policy of "containment," protect America's credibility, and defy the left's antiwar movement at home. Tactically, politically, Nixon's moves made sense. However, by 1971 the president was forced to significantly de-escalate the American presence and seek a negotiated end to the war, which is now accepted as an American defeat, and a resounding failure of American foreign relations. Schmitz addresses the main controversies of Nixon's Vietnam strategy, and in so doing manages to trace back the ways in which this most calculating and perceptive politician wound up resigning from office a fraud and failure. Finally, the book seeks to place the impact of Nixon's policies and decisions in the larger context of post-World War II American society, and analyzes the full costs of the Vietnam War that the nation feels to this day.
The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer--a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life of our most literary president. In The Road to Monticello, Kevin J. Hayes fills this important gap by offering a lively account of Jefferson's spiritual and intellectual development, focusing on the books and ideas that exerted the most profound influence on him. Moving chronologically through Jefferson's life, Hayes reveals the full range and depth of Jefferson's literary passions, from the popular "small books" sold by traveling chapmen, such as The History of Tom Thumb, which enthralled him as a child; to his lifelong love of Aesop's Fables and Robinson Crusoe; his engagement with Horace, Ovid, Virgil and other writers of classical antiquity; and his deep affinity with the melancholy verse of Ossian, the legendary third-century Gaelic warrior-poet. Drawing on Jefferson's letters, journals, and commonplace books, Hayes offers a wealth of new scholarship on the print culture of colonial America, reveals an intimate portrait of Jefferson's activities beyond the political chamber, and reconstructs the president's investigations in such different fields of knowledge as law, history, philosophy and natural science. Most importantly, Hayes uncovers the ideas and exchanges which informed the thinking of America's first great intellectual and shows how his lifelong pursuit of knowledge culminated in the formation of a public offering, the "academic village" which became UVA, and his more private retreat at Monticello. Gracefully written and painstakingly researched, The Road to Monticello provides an invaluable look at Jefferson's intellectual and literary life, uncovering the roots of some of the most important-and influential-ideas that have informed American history.
The War Worth Fighting: Abraham Lincoln's Presidency and Civil War America This volume of original essays, featuring an all-star lineup of Civil War and Lincoln scholars, provides the most current interpretations of the period and the man thrust into its center. Perhaps no one who ever pledged to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and defend the Constitution faced such fundamental challenges. The contributors to this volume examine how Lincoln actively and consciously managed the war--diplomatically, militarily, and in the realm of what we might now call public relations--and in doing so, reshaped and redefined the fundamental role of the president.

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Abraham Lincoln: A Biography Everyone wants to define the man who signed his name "A. Lincoln." In his lifetime and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves to characterize Lincoln according to their own label or libel. In this magnificent book, Ronald C. White, Jr., offers a fresh and compelling definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity-what today's commentators would call "authenticity"-whose moral compass holds the key to understanding his life. Through meticulous research of the newly completed Lincoln Legal Papers, as well as of recently discovered letters and photographs, White provides a portrait of Lincoln's personal, political, and moral evolution.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington forever. Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad.
And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how--and why--he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America. A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents--a remote icon--or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln--an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination in 1865: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln's story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama No story has been more central to America's history this century than the rise of Barack Obama, and until now, no journalist or historian has written a book that fully investigates the circumstances and experiences of Obama's life or explores the ambition behind his rise.
The Case for Trump This Trump biography from a major American intellectual explains how a renegade businessman became one of the most successful -- and necessary -- presidents of all time. In The Case for Trump, award-winning historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson explains how a celebrity businessman with no political or military experience triumphed over sixteen well-qualified Republican rivals, a Democrat with a quarter-billion-dollar war chest, and a hostile media and Washington establishment to become president of the United States -- and an extremely successful president. Trump alone saw a political opportunity in defending the working people of America's interior whom the coastal elite of both parties had come to scorn, Hanson argues. And Trump alone had the instincts and energy to pursue this opening to victory, dismantle a corrupt old order, and bring long-overdue policy changes at home and abroad. We could not survive a series of presidencies as volatile as Trump's. But after decades of drift, America needs the outsider Trump to do what normal politicians would not and could not do.
Eisenhower: In War and Peace This peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America's thirty-fourth president. As America searches for new heroes to lead it out of its present-day predicaments, Jean Edward Smith's achievement lies in reintroducing us to a hero from the past whose virtues have become clouded in the mists of history.
His Excellency: George Washington Joseph J. Ellis has crafted a landmark biography that brings to life in all his complexity the most important and perhaps least understood figure in American history, George Washington. With his careful attention to detail and his lyrical prose, Ellis has set a new standard for biography. Drawing from the newly cataloged Washington papers at the University of Virginia, Joseph Ellis paints a full portrait of George Washington's life and career; from his military years through his two terms as president. Ellis illuminates the difficulties the first executive confronted as he worked to keep the emerging country united in the face of adversarial factions. He richly details Washington's private life and illustrates the ways in which it influenced his public persona.
Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency Nearly fifty years after being sworn in as president of the United States in the wake of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson remains a largely misunderstood figure. His force of personality, mastery of power and the political process, and boundless appetite for social reform made him one of the towering figures of his time. But he was one of the most protean and paradoxical of presidents as well. Because of his flawed nature and inherent contradictions, some claimed there were as many LBJs as there were people who knew him. Intent on fulfilling the promise of America, Johnson launched a revolution in civil rights, federal aid to education, and health care for the elderly and indigent, and expanded immigration and environmental protection. A flurry of landmark laws--he would sign an unparalleled 207 during his five years in office, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Head Start, and Medicare--are testaments to the triumph of his will. His War on Poverty alone brought the U.S. poverty rate down from 20 percent to 12 percent, the biggest one-time drop in American history. As president, he was known for getting things done.
Inside Trump's White House After dozens of books and articles by anonymous sources, here is finally a history of the Trump White House with the President and his staff talking openly, on the record. In Inside Trump's White House, Doug Wead offers a sweeping, eloquent history of President Donald J. Trump's first years in office, covering everything from election night to the news of today. The book will include never-before-reported stories and scoops, including how President Trump turned around the American economy, how he "never complains and never explains," and how his actions sometimes lead to misunderstandings with the media and the public. It also includes exclusive interviews with the Trump family about the Mueller report, and narrates their reactions when the report was finally released. Contains Interviews with the President in the Oval Office, chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, Jared and Ivanka Kushner, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric and Lara Trump, and White House insiders.
Joe Biden: The Life, The Run, and What Matters Now A concise, brilliant, and trenchant examination of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s successful lifelong quest for the presidency. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest--fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses and disappointments that he has suffered. Yet even as Biden's life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors, and reversals of fortune. As he says, "Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable." His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship--an essential quality as he leads America toward recovery and renewal. Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos, draws on nearly a decade of reporting for The New Yorker to capture the characters and meaning of 2020's extraordinary presidential election. It is based on lengthy interviews with Biden and on revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a range of activists, advisers, opponents, and Biden family members. This portrayal illuminates Biden's long and eventful career in the Senate, his eight years as Obama's vice president, his sojourn in the political wilderness after being passed over for Hillary Clinton in 2016, his decision to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, and his choice of Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate. Osnos ponders the difficulties Biden faces as his presidency begins and weighs how a changing country, a deep well of experiences, and a rigorous approach to the issues, have altered his positions. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy--a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history.
John Adams The biography of America's founding father and second president that was the basis for the acclaimed HBO series, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.
My Life President Bill Clinton's My Life is the strikingly candid portrait of a global leader who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the public. It shows us the progress of a remarkable American, who, through his own enormous energies and efforts, made the unlikely journey from Hope, Arkansas, to the White House--a journey fueled by an impassioned interest in the political process which manifested itself at every stage of his life: in college, working as an intern for Senator William Fulbright; at Oxford, becoming part of the Vietnam War protest movement; at Yale Law School, campaigning on the grassroots level for Democratic candidates; back in Arkansas, running for Congress, attorney general, and governor. We see his career shaped by his resolute determination to improve the life of his fellow citizens, an unfaltering commitment to civil rights, and an exceptional understanding of the practicalities of political life. We come to understand the emotional pressures of his youth--born after his father's death; caught in the dysfunctional relationship between his feisty, nurturing mother and his abusive stepfather, whom he never ceased to love and whose name he took; drawn to the brilliant, compelling Hillary Rodham, whom he was determined to marry; passionately devoted, from her infancy, to their daughter, Chelsea, and to the entire experience of fatherhood; slowly and painfully beginning to comprehend how his early denial of pain led him at times into damaging patterns of behavior. President Clinton's book is also the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account of a presidency ever written--encompassing not only the high points and crises but the way the presidency actually works: the day-to-day bombardment of problems, personalities, conflicts, setbacks, achievements. It is a testament to the positive impact on America and on the world of his work and his ideals. It is the gripping account of a president under concerted and unrelenting assault orchestrated by his enemies on the Far Right, and how he survived and prevailed. It is a treasury of moments caught alive, among them: The ten-year-old boy watching the national political conventions on his family's new (and first) television set. The young candidate looking for votes in the Arkansas hills and the local seer who tells him, "Anybody who would campaign at a beer joint in Joiner at midnight on Saturday night deserves to carry one box. . . . You'll win here. But it'll be the only damn place you win in this county." (He was right on both counts.) The roller-coaster ride of the 1992 campaign. The extraordinarily frank exchanges with Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole. The delicate manipulation needed to convince Rabin and Arafat to shake hands for the camera while keeping Arafat from kissing Rabin. The cost, both public and private, of the scandal that threatened the presidency. Here is the life of a great national and international figure, revealed with all his talents and contradictions, told openly, directly, in his own completely recognizable voice. A unique book by a unique American.
Nixon: A Life Nixon - loathed or admired, the name recalls one of the most extraordinary political survivors in American history. Author Jonathan Aitken interviewed the legendary politician and was granted unprecedented access to his private documents to root out answers to many questions. Why didn't he burn the Watergate tapes? What were his relationships with John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, and Henry Kissinger? How did he recover after resigning the presidency in 1974? A major work of political biography, Nixon: A Life chronicles the incredible journey of a man from failed candidate to holder of the most powerful office in the world to disgraced president to rehabilitated elder statesman - a life that was nothing short of remarkable.
Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy & the American Experiment An intimate study of Abraham Lincoln's powerful vision of democracy, which guided him through the Civil War and is still relevant today. Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment, and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know less about Lincolns penetrating ideas and beliefs about democracy, which were every bit as important as his character in sustaining him through the crisis. Allen C. Guelzo, one of Americas foremost experts on Lincoln, captures the president's firmly held belief that democracy was the greatest political achievement in human history. He shows how Lincolns deep commitment to the balance between majority and minority rule enabled him to stand firm against secession while also committing the Union to reconciliation rather than recrimination in the aftermath of war. In bringing his subject to life as a rigorous and visionary thinker, Guelzo assesses Lincolns actions on civil liberties and his views on race, and explains why his vision for the role of government would have made him a pivotal president even if there had been no Civil War. Our Ancient Faith gives us a deeper understanding of this endlessly fascinating man and shows how his ideas are still sharp and relevant more than 150 years later.
Theodore Rex The most eagerly awaited presidential biography in years, Theodore Rex is a sequel to Edmund Morris's classic bestseller The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. It begins by following the new President (still the youngest in American history) as he comes down from Mount Marcy, New York, to take his emergency oath of office in Buffalo, one hundred years ago. A detailed prologue describes TR's assumption of power and journey to Washington, with the assassinated President McKinley riding behind him like a ghost of the nineteenth century.
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power In this biography, Jon Meacham brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things--women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris--Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America.
Time and Chance: Gerald Ford's Appointment with History Gerald Ford came to the presidency at the time of one of our nation's greatest constitutional crises, the downfall of President Richard M. Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate affair. His service as president concluded a distinguished career in the House of Representatives during which he served as leader of the Republican Party in the House. With unrestricted access to Gerald Ford's papers, James M. Cannon tells the story of Ford's rise and Nixon's ruin, providing new insights into this troubling period of our history and Ford's role in guiding the nation through it. Cannon tells the story of Ford's difficult early life and the beginnings of his career in politics in the period immediately after World War II. He tells the story of Ford's rise to prominence in the House of Representatives during the 1950s and 1960s, giving us a fascinating picture of the Congress. In addition, in telling us about the personal life of Gerald Ford, he gives us a sense of the price Ford paid for his success.
The Trials of Harry S. Truman: The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953 The first full account of the Truman presidency in nearly thirty years, recounting how so ordinary a man met the extraordinary challenge of leading America through the pivotal years of the mid-20th century. The nearly eight years of Harry Truman's presidency--among the most turbulent in American history--were marked by victory in the wars against Germany and Japan; the first use of an atomic weapon; the beginning of the Cold War; creation of the NATO alliance; the founding of the United Nations; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight in Korea. Historians have tended to portray Truman as stolid and decisive, with a homespun manner, but the man who emerges in The Trials of Harry S. Truman is complex and surprising. He believed that the point of public service was to improve the lives of one's fellow citizens, and was disturbed by the brutal treatment of African Americans. Yet while he supported stronger civil rights laws, he never quite relinquished the deep-rooted outlook of someone with Confederate ancestry reared in rural Missouri. He was often carried along by the rush of events and guided by men who succeeded in refining his fixed and facile view of the postwar world. And while he prided himself on his Midwestern rationality, he could act out of emotion, as when, in the aftermath of World War II, moved by the plight of refugees, he pushed to recognize the new state of Israel. The Truman who emerges in these pages is a man with generous impulses, loyal to friends and family, and blessed with keen political instincts, but insecure, quick to anger, and prone to hasty decisions. Archival discoveries, and research that led from Missouri to Washington, Berlin and Korea, have contributed to an indelible, and deeply human, portrait of an ordinary man suddenly forced to shoulder extraordinary responsibilities, who never lost a schoolboy's romantic love for his country, and its Constitution.
Truman Biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America's beloved and distinguished historian. The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters--Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson--and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man--a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined--but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges.
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 An Unfinished Life is the first major, single-volume life of John F. Kennedy to be written by a historian in nearly four decades. Drawing upon previously unavailable material and never-before-opened archives to tell Kennedy's story. We learn for the first time just how sick Kennedy was, what medications he took and concealed from all but a few, and how severely his medical condition affected his actions as President. We learn for the first time the real story of how Bobby was selected as Attorney General. Dallek reveals exactly what Jack's father did to help his election to the presidency, and he follows previously unknown evidence to show what path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement had he survived.
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography The first major biography of America's twenty-eighth president in nearly two decades, from one of America's foremost Woodrow Wilson scholars. A Democrat who reclaimed the White House after sixteen years of Republican administrations, Wilson was a transformative president; he helped create the regulatory bodies and legislation that prefigured FDR's New Deal and would prove central to governance through the early twenty-first century, including the Federal Reserve system and the Clayton Antitrust Act; he guided the nation through World War I; and, although his advocacy in favor of joining the League of Nations proved unsuccessful, he nonetheless established a new way of thinking about international relations that would carry America into the United Nations era. Yet Wilson also steadfastly resisted progress for civil rights, while his attorney general launched an aggressive attack on civil liberties.