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Presidents & founding fathers recs
Posted on 1/23/24 at 7:39 pm
Posted on 1/23/24 at 7:39 pm
Looking for some books about presidents and/or the founding fathers y'all found most interesting. I definitely want to read more into Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc.
Posted on 1/24/24 at 12:02 am to reauxl tigers
Anything by David McCollough. A
Adams, Truman and 1776 are particularly good.
Chernov's George Washington book is good.
Edmond Morris on TR, just not Reagan.
Anything by Doris Kearns Goodwin - Lincoln (A Team of Rivals), TR, FDR (No Ordinary Time) and the Kennedys.
Adams, Truman and 1776 are particularly good.
Chernov's George Washington book is good.
Edmond Morris on TR, just not Reagan.
Anything by Doris Kearns Goodwin - Lincoln (A Team of Rivals), TR, FDR (No Ordinary Time) and the Kennedys.
This post was edited on 1/24/24 at 12:11 am
Posted on 1/24/24 at 8:09 am to geauxpurple
quote:
Anything by David McCollough.
His book 1776 was excellent (about Washington).
Posted on 1/24/24 at 10:14 am to reauxl tigers
Joseph Ellis.
This post was edited on 1/24/24 at 10:15 am
Posted on 1/24/24 at 10:16 am to reauxl tigers
The Life and Times of William Howard Taft by Pringle. Taft got a raw deal as president after the betrayal of his longtime friend Teddy Roosevelt. His problem was that he was focused too much on pushing through good policy instead of playing politics. Even with this betrayal and loss of the 1912 election, he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Posted on 1/24/24 at 11:28 am to reauxl tigers
This is probably more adjacent to what you're looking for. It's been a while since I've read it but I recall really enjoying it. It's called Heirs to the Founders. It's basically about the heavy hitters that ran Congress in the generation after the Founding Fathers. If I recall, it does cover Jackson's elections (because Congress was heavily involved in his loss and Calhoun was his VP after his win) since you explicitly mentioned him.
quote:
In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky, as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina’s John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery.
Together these heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Adams took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency and set themselves the task of finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Their rise was marked by dramatic duels, fierce debates, scandal and political betrayal. Yet each in his own way sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its refusal to specify where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation, and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery.
They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the Union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the Union as a free state, “the immortal trio” had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But, by that point, they had never been further apart.
Thrillingly and authoritatively, H. W. Brands narrates an epic American rivalry and the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy.
This post was edited on 1/24/24 at 1:27 pm
Posted on 1/27/24 at 8:32 am to reauxl tigers
I can't recommend "The Great Upheaval" by Jay Winik enough.
This post was edited on 1/27/24 at 8:33 am
Posted on 1/29/24 at 8:51 am to reauxl tigers
Grant by Ron Chernow
The LBJ books by Robert Caro
The LBJ books by Robert Caro
Posted on 2/4/24 at 11:11 am to witty alias
Bill O'Reilly has a book coming out this year that covers each president.
Posted on 2/8/24 at 7:30 am to bayoubengals88
Thanks for recommending Founding Brothers. I just finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it. My first book by Ellis but not my last
Posted on 2/14/24 at 11:08 pm to reauxl tigers
The Shadow of Blooming Grove, Warren G. Harding In His Times. May be out of print now, it was written in the sixties or seventies. Fascinating look at a man who if not the worst president, is in the top 5 easily.
Posted on 2/15/24 at 9:23 pm to reauxl tigers
1920 The Year of the Six Presidents: David Pietrusza - Amazon.com
The same author has also written books on the presidential elections of 1932, 1948, and 1960, all of which are excellent.
Just finished a very similar book:
Just Plain Dick: Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech and the “Rocking, Socking” Election of 1952
Highly recommended as well.
RIP
quote:This has become on of my all time favorite history books. Not only is the wheeling and dealing at the nominating conventions fascinating, but the book is often laugh out loud funny -- surely a rare quality in history books, at least in my experience
The presidential election of 1920 was among history's most dramatic. Six once-and-future presidents-Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt-jockeyed for the White House. With voters choosing between Wilson's League of Nations and Harding's front-porch isolationism, the 1920 election shaped modern America. Women won the vote. Republicans outspent Democrats by 4 to 1, as voters witnessed the first extensive newsreel coverage, modern campaign advertising, and results broadcast on radio. America had become an urban nation: Automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit transformed the economy. 1920 paints a vivid portrait of America, beset by the Red Scare, jailed dissidents, Prohibition, smoke-filled rooms, bomb-throwing terrorists, and the Klan, gingerly crossing modernity's threshold.
The same author has also written books on the presidential elections of 1932, 1948, and 1960, all of which are excellent.
Just finished a very similar book:
Just Plain Dick: Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech and the “Rocking, Socking” Election of 1952
Highly recommended as well.
RIP
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