Presidential Biographies

Biographies written about the (thus far) men who have served as United States presidents.
Updated September 19, 2022
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
John Adams
David McCullough
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling 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...
My Life
Bill Clinton
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,...
Truman /
McCullough, David G.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning 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...
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Doris Kearns Goodwin
One of the most influential books of the past fifty years, Team of Rivals is Pulitzer Prize-winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's modern classic about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, his unlikely presidency, and his cabinet of former political...
Theodore Rex
Edmund Morris
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "A shining portrait of a presciently modern political genius maneuvering in a gilded age of wealth, optimism, excess and American global ascension."--San Francisco Chronicle WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR...
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Edmund Morris
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * One of Modern Library's 100 best nonfiction books of all time * One of Esquire's 50 best biographies of all time "A towering biography . . . a brilliant chronicle."--Time This classic...
Lincoln
David Herbert Donald
The phenomenal national bestseller that is "the Lincoln biography for this generation" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.)--now in paperback. Drawing on resources not available until recently--including Lincoln's personal papers, archives, and newspaper reports--two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author David...
Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt
David McCullough
The National Book Award-winning biography that tells the story of how young Teddy Roosevelt transformed himself from a sickly boy into the vigorous man who would become a war hero and ultimately president of the United States, told by master historian David McCullough. ...
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
Robert Dallek
Robert Dallek's masterful John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life was a number one national bestseller, and it remains the most widely read one-volume biography of the 35th President. Now, in this marvelous short biography of John F. Kennedy, Dallek achieves a miracle of compression, capturing in a...
Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times
H. W. Brands
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The First American comes the first major single-volume biography in a decade of the president who defined American democracy * "A big, rich biography." --...
FDR
Jean Edward Smith
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "A model presidential biography... Now, at last, we have a biography that is right for the man" - Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World One of today's premier biographers has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic...
American Lion
Jon Meacham
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...
Washington: A Life
Ron Chernow
From the author of Alexander Hamilton, the New York Times bestselling biography that inspired the musical, comes a gripping portrait of the first president of the United States. Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography "Truly...
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Jon Meacham
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * The Washington Post * Entertainment Weekly * The Seattle Times * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Bloomberg Businessweek In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of...
President McKinley: Architect of the American Century
Robert W. Merry
"A deft character study of a president."--The New York Times Book Review "A valuable education on where America has been and, possibly, where it is going."--National Review "Magisterial."--The Christian Science Monitor ...
Grant
Ron Chernow
The #1 New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2017 "Eminently readable but thick with import . . . Grant hits like a Mack truck of knowledge." --Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic<...
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams
Phyllis Lee Levin
A patriot by birth, John Quincy Adams's destiny was foreordained. He was not only "The Greatest Traveler of His Age," but his country's most gifted linguist and most experienced diplomat. John Quincy's world encompassed the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the early and late Napoleonic Age....
Eisenhower in War and Peace
Jean Edward Smith
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Christian Science Monitor * St. Louis Post-Dispatch In his magisterial bestseller FDR, Jean Edward Smith gave us a fresh, modern look at one of the most indelible figures in American history. Now this...
Richard Nixon: The Life
John A. Farrell
From a prize-winning biographer comes the defining portrait of a man who led America in a time of turmoil and left us a darker age. We live today, John A. Farrell shows, in a world Richard Nixon made.   At the end of WWII, navy lieutenant "Nick" Nixon returned from the...
His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life
Jonathan Alter
From one of America's most respected journalists and modern historians comes the highly acclaimed, "splendid" (The Washington Post) biography of Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States and Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian. Jonathan Alter tells the...
Destiny and Power The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
Jon Meacham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In this "illuminating" (USA Today) biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush. "Destiny and Power reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer:...
The years of Lyndon Johnson /
Caro, Robert A.
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE, THE AMERICAN HISTORY BOOK PRIZEBook Four of Robert A. Caro's monumental The Years of Lyndon Johnson displays all the narrative energy and...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.