973.4-973.93: Presidential History

This collection contains titles that chronicle the lives of the American presidents. It consists mostly of biographies and memoirs but will also contain historical texts about important events where a president's actions and decision-making skills were significant.

Updated June 24, 2023
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1

Accidental presidents : eight men who changed America
Cohen, Jared
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the character of the man...

2

Air Force One : a history of the presidents and their planes
Walsh, Kenneth T.
Paper Book
From the award-winning chief White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report comes the definitive history of Air Force One. From FDR's prop-driven Pan Am to the glimmering blue and white jumbo 747 on which George W. Bush travels, the president's plane has captured...

3

And there was light : Abraham Lincoln and the American struggle
Meacham, Jon
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . Pulitzer Prize-winning biographerJon 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. "Meacham has given us...

4

The approaching storm : Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams, and their clash over America's future
Lanctot, Neil
Paper Book
Winner of the 2022 award for biography from the American Society of Journalists and Authors The fascinating story of how the three most influential American progressives of the early twentieth century split over America's response to World War I. In the...

5

Bill O'Reilly's Legends & lies. The patriots
Fisher, David
Digital file

6

The bully pulpit : Theodore Roosevelt and the golden age of journalism
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paper Book
In the Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin showed how Abraham Lincoln saved America by appointing his fiercest rivals to key cabinet positions. Now she turns to the birth of America's Progressive Era - that heady time at the turn of the twentieth century when the US was coming unseamed and...

7

Days of fire : Bush and Cheney in the White House
Baker, Peter
Paper Book
In Days of Fire, Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, takes us on a gripping and intimate journey through the eight years of the Bush and Cheney administration in a tour-de-force narrative of a dramatic and controversial presidency.

8

Don't know much about the American presidents : everything you need to know about the most powerful office on Earth and the men who have occupied it
Davis, Kenneth C.
Paper Book
Which president broke the law to prevent enslaved people from being freed? Who said, "When the president does it,that means it's not illegal"? Why does America have a president? From the heated debates among the framers of the Constitution in 1787 over an "elected king," to the...

9

First family : Abigail and John
Ellis, Joseph J.
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of Founding Brothers and His Excellency brings America's preeminent first couple to life in a moving and illuminating narrative that sweeps through the American Revolution and the republic's tenuous early years.John and Abigail Adams left an indelible...

10

Franklin & Washington : the founding partnership
Larson, Edward J.
Paper Book
"Larson's elegantly written dual biography reveals that the partnership of Franklin and Washington was indispensable to the success of the Revolution." --Gordon S. Wood  From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin...

11

The general vs. the president : MacArthur and Truman at the brink of nuclear war
Brands, H. W.
Paper Book
From master storyteller and historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a...

12

Incomparable grace : JFK in the presidency
Updegrove, Mark K.
Paper Book
An illuminating account of John F. Kennedy's brief but transformative tenure in the White House, from acclaimed author and historian Mark K. Updegrove, head of the LBJ Foundation and presidential historian for ABC News "Tremendously absorbing and inviting... An important book....

13

Leadership in turbulent times
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paper Book
Doris Kearns Goodwin's magnum opus tackles the big leadership questions- are leaders born or made? Do the times make the leader or does the leader make the times? In Leadership Goodwin draws upon four of the presidents she has studied - Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt,...

14

The Lincoln conspiracy : the secret plot to kill America's 16th president--and why it failed
Meltzer, Brad
Paper Book
Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch, the bestselling authors of The First Conspiracy, which covers the secret plot against George Washington, now turn their attention to a little-known, but true story about a failed assassination attempt on the sixteenth president in The Lincoln Conspiracy<...

15

No ordinary time : Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt : the home front in World War II
Goodwin, Doris Kearns.
Paper Book
In a portrayal of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the war years, this work illuminates the partnership that raised America from the Depression, forged military victory, and transformed the nation into a superpower.

16

Presidential misconduct : from George Washington to today
Banner, James M.
Paper Book
Named a best book of the year by The Economist and Foreign Affairs "A whole book devoted exclusively to the misconduct of American presidents and their responses to charges of misconduct is without precedent." --from the introduction to the 1974 edition by C. Vann Woodward, Pulitzer Prize...

17

The presidents club : inside the world's most exclusive fraternity
Gibbs, Nancy
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling history of the private relationships among the last thirteen presidents--the partnerships, private deals, rescue missions, and rivalries of those select men who served as commander in chief. The Presidents Club, established at Dwight...

18

The Roosevelts : an intimate history
Ward, Geoffrey C.
Paper Book
An extraordinarily vivid and personal portrait of America's greatest political family and its enormous impact the United States. It is the companion to to the PBS documentary to air in the US in the fall of 2014. This handsome, engaging, revelatory book is an intimate...

19

Travels with George : in search of Washington and his legacy
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Travels with George . . . is quintessential Philbrick--a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement." --The Boston Globe   Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for...

20

The Virginia dynasty : four presidents and the creation of the American nation
Cheney, Lynne V.
Paper Book
From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four of the nation's first five presidents - a geographic dynasty whose members led a revolution, created a nation, and ultimately changed the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were born, grew...

21

Where they stand : the American presidents in the eyes of voters and historians
Merry, Robert W.
Paper Book
For the 2012 presidential race, the author of the acclaimed and successful biography of President James Polk offers a fresh, playful, and challenging way of playing "Rating the Presidents"--America's favorite game--by pitching historians' views and subsequent experts' polls against the judgment...

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