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Reader Question of the Week: Hail to the Chiefs

Here is a question we put before readers before getting swept up in the holidays:

H.M. in San Dimas, CA, asks: I love presidential biographies and have read several. It's easy to find biographies for presidents from FDR to present, but before that it gets a bit harder, unless it's someone like Abraham Lincoln, of course. So... recommendations?

And here are some of the answers we got in response. We put them in order of the presidents, chronologically. For those readers who suggested more than one book, we used the earliest-mentioned president for ordering purposes:

R.B. in Cleveland OH: I recently came across a Substack on this topic.



T.B. in Denver, CO: Looking for a biography of Martin Van Buren 10 years ago, I found the American Presidents series edited by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.



J.F. in Toronto, ON, Canada: Ron Chernow's bio of George Washington weighs a ton, but it's beautifully written and informative. And, I'm a professional historian.



J.B. in Hutto, TX: As a person who reads presidential biographies of the Early Republic almost obsessively, I was delighted with the question from H.M. in San Dimas. Here are my choices for the first seven presidents:

Enjoy!


J.A. in Forest, VA: Washington, by Ron Chernow. It gives a very good insight into life in 18th Century Virginia and also shows how Washington, along with many other Virginia planters, was far from wealthy. The only reason he was able to keep up his lifestyle is because virtually everyone related to him died and he inherited their stuff. It also shows how shaky the farmland was in Virginia. Many farms were settled only to see the land shot within a few years. (As an aside, my wife and I were recently in Colonial Williamsburg and the fellow who portrays young George Washington is terrific; when asked which books he bases his presentations on, he answered "none of them," then admitted that Chernow's book is probably the best one out there. He bases his portrayal on Washington's correspondence, and insists that there are important passages in his letters that all writers have missed... including why Washington switched to the Patriot cause in late 1774.)

Three historical biographies best read back-to-back-to-back are American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis, John Adams by David McCullough, and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.

A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic by Henry Mayer. It's a biography of Patrick Henry and answered my long-standing question of why there were 13 American states when there were more than 13 British colonies in America. It matches well with Washington, by giving a look at the lower classes in Virginia in the mid-1700s. Incidentally, when Henry gave his famous Stamp Act speech in the House of Burgesses in 1765 ("Caesar had his Brutus, etc., etc.") he had been a Burgess for less than two weeks.

1776, by David McCullough, is good. Duel, by Thomas Fleming, describes the Hamilton-Burr affair and is excellent.

American Lion by Jon Meacham is a good bridge between the Revolution and the Civil War. I thought is was a bit short and lacked detail. Still won a Pulitzer, though.

A surprisingly good book is Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession by Russell McClintock. If I'm remembering right, the author was a high school history teacher. If you had the vanilla history classes that I had growing up and you thought that Lincoln was elected and the South seceded, it didn't happen quite that way.

A book to be read before Lincoln and the Decision for War is The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics by Don E. Fehrenbacher. I haven't made it through yet, in two attempts. The author warns that it's a complex subject, and that everyone who attempts it sets out to write a short magazine article and winds up writing an encyclopedia. The Supreme Court decision went far, far beyond deciding Scott's freedom and was the first instance of the Court overturning major Congressional legislation—the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. If you decide to try it, make sure that you have plenty of time to get through it—there are many names and acts of legislation that are important to remember along the way, and my memory just got overwhelmed by distractions.

Edmund Morris wrote a trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex and Colonel Roosevelt. The first was the best but all three are good.

The Roosevelts: An American Saga, by Peter Collier, covers both branches of the Roosevelt family. TR's sons were quite accomplished; I had thought that Franklin's sons served mainly in staff jobs in World War II but that's not true. They were just not as good at stopping bullets as TR's sons were. TR's third son Archie was the only American to be 100% disabled in both World Wars and the only one of four to survive both wars.



D.S. in Albuquerque, NM: If you asked me who my favorite Founding Father is, I could fudge, like Sarah Palin once did, and say "all of them," but unlike Ms. Palin, I have actually cracked open a few books on American history in my time. So if I had to choose one of our founders, it would be John Adams, especially since he never owned slaves and was an early abolitionist, which makes him practically unique among that group. Not only that, he was probably the smartest of the bunch. (Too bad he didn't prevail on the slavery issue; we could have avoided a lot of trouble if he had.) The best biography of Adams—and maybe the best biography of anybody, for that matter—is David McCullough's John Adams. For 651 pages, this master storyteller recounts the compelling narrative of Adams' life in great detail without ever getting bogged down in those details. And while the book received lavish praise from most reviewers, a few criticized it for not delving deep enough into Adams' political thought. For someone like me, who is a bit tired of politics at the moment, that's just fine. Highly recommended!



B.P. in Wauwatosa, WI: Presidential biographies pre-FDR are a bit harder to find. I spent four decades in the book business and had pretty good exposure to the pickings, but for certain eras there just isn't much out there. However, here's a handful that I have found that were worth the time:



G.R.R. in Claremont, CA: I highly recommend The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff. Although not a presidential biography, it is presidential-adjacent. Schiff is a great writer and she provides so many details about colonial Boston. It is worth reading just for that aspect. Throw in details about Samuel Adams, John Hancock, James Otis, and events leading up to the Revolutionary War, and you have yourself a great read.



M.B. in Ward, CO: Thomas Jefferson: The Art Of Power, by Jon Meacham. This gives you the full story of his relations with Sally Hemings and their children, which is fascinating in itself, and a commentary on American hypocrisy in itself. But it also sheds a lot of light on why American democracy is what it is. From Jefferson to Andrew Jackson, the presidency and the country were his (Jefferson's) dynasty and his progeny.



M.M. in San Diego, CA: Thomas Jefferson is one of the major presidents, so he may not qualify, but Fawn Brodie's Jefferson: An Intimate History, in the school of psychobiography, is worth a read.

She also wrote the definitive biography of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, which put to rest my question: Was Joseph Smith a lunatic or a conman?



C.S. in Philadelphia, PA: Being in the city of the Museum of the American Revolution, James Monroe: A Life popped up on their feed a few years ago and my wife purchased it for my birthday. James Monroe is a name I always recognized but seemed to know little about. McGrath covers him in detail but it is still highly readable. Monroe was a bridge between the Revolution and the next generation of American politics. He was grievously wounded at the Battle of Trenton (one of the few American casualties), served as Minister to France in the midst of their revolution, saw the British invade Washington, D.C., and had extensive interactions (and conflicts) with George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. It also covers his shifting views on slavery... Liberia's capital, Monrovia, is named for him.



F.V. in Auburn, AL: A couple I enjoyed about the early presidents: The Reign of Andrew Jackson, by Frederic Austin Ogg and Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, by Walter R. Borneman.



G.M. in Arlington, VA: I found American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham, to be a great not-too-long biography of our first hellraiser president. I picked it up after Donald Trump was in office the first time and was garnering frequent comparisons to Jackson because of his unconventional attitudes to the elites in power up to that point. It covers Jackson's family relationships and the nullification crisis in detail.



C.J. in Redondo Beach, CA: Interestingly, I find it to be MUCH easier to find good presidential biographies for presidents from yesteryear than more recent ones (with some exceptions—I'm still searching for a good Benjamin Harrison book, the only two I've read were underwhelming). Having 50+ years of out of office for context is helpful, in my view.

Here are some presidential bios I have enjoyed reading over the last half dozen years or so:

In addition, not true biographies, but a couple of books that still give you a flavor of men and the times that I highly recommend:



J.B. in Dillon, IL: I've always been interested in "Young Hickory," James Knox Polk. He never really wanted the job of president, and when he was coaxed into running and won, was adamant about not pursuing a second term. And yet in my yearly following of "Presidential Rankings" lists that typically appear in February, he's always in the top third, frequently cracking the top ten for many historians.

I wondered why, and I was able to find an excellent read called A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent by Robert W. Merry. Being in the final days of the one-term but highly consequential Joe Biden, and to a lesser extent the recent examination of the long life of Jimmy Carter, a look at Polk's leadership is highly recommended.



K.B. in New York City, NY: The Story of Millard Fillmore: An Inspiring Story for Kids by Reza Nazari.

Serious submission. While often derided, Fillmore did overcome poverty and helped push through the Compromise of 1850. Also, seeing history though a child's eyes does impart a different, and (I believe) potentially valuable perspective. "Inspiring" may be a bit optimistic here, though.

That said, reading this book along with Fillmore's wiki entry is probably enough to understand the man...



S.M. in San Francisco, CA: If you don't mind an autobiography there's The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. The great Mark Twain served as the literary and copy editor, working side-by-side with Grant.



D.R. in Norwalk, CT: I'll suggest three books, one in my fantasies, two in my hands:



T.D. in Rogers, AR: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candace Millard.

This is a marvelous book, and actually relevant to our current political situation. President Garfield was murdered because he did not believe or participate in the system of political patronage (spoils). He was a man of great character and it is tragedy to our history that he did not live out his political potential. His death was a factor in the creation of Civil Service in the federal government, and many other eventual reforms through the Pendelton Act of 1883. This is a bit like the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being influenced by the death of President Kennedy. The other tragedy of Garfield is that he was effectively tortured by a surrounding of medical quacks after he was shot, and today would've probably been back to work in a matter of weeks with a few rounds of antibiotics. Science!

We have lived the last century and a half as a country under the good-government reforms that began with the death of President Garfield. A now we are about to throw it all away because we only like government when it's entertaining.



J.P. in Horsham, PA: I really enjoyed Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, by Thomas C. Reeves, which is a really compelling biography of President Chester Arthur. Given his career prior to ascending to the presidency, and given that he became president under, shall we say, inauspicious circumstances, I think his contemporaries would have been justified in mistrusting him. That he was able to adapt to the needs of the office should serve as a reminder of what the presidency ought to be.



B.D. in Lisle, IL: I too love reading presidential biographies and there are many of the "usual suspects" that I have read. In fact, choosing presidential biographies based on their authors is one pretty safe way to succeed. On that front I would recommend nearly anything by David McCullough, Ron Chernow or Jon Meacham. These may not all be the best possible example of that president's biography, but they are well-researched and well-written. There are also a million lists out there. In this case, however, I would rather like to recommend a somewhat frivolous book that is none-the-less a really great read and enlightening from the standpoint of really understanding how different things were back in the 19th century, albeit in a somewhat strange way. The book is The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth, by Matthew Algeo.

You'll thank me.



R.L.D. in Sundance, WY: Perhaps this falls into the category of "Someone like Lincoln" but I recently read Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris. It's the second book of his TR Trilogy (TRilogy?) and covers his presidency. I really appreciated that it was presented chronologically, but each chapter also was (largely) organized around themes. I was also fascinated to learn the details of how the political and diplomatic intrigue around the independence movement of Panama, the switch from a Nicaraguan Canal to the project in Panama, and the maneuvering around political corruption all played out. My wife made fun of me putting so much effort into such a boring topic, but, in fact, I found it all quite interesting (she knows I'm an historian at heart!). TR had a big influence on this region of the country and to this day is memorialized on two mountains in the South Dakota part of my beloved Black Hills (Mt. Rushmore, obviously, but also Mt. Roosevelt near Deadwood).

Here is the question for next week:

C.J. in Boulder, CO, asks: I've been reading Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, which carries certain shades of how things might evolve with AI. So the question is, what novel(s) best capture where we are as a society today?

Submit your answers to comments@electoral-vote.com, preferably with subject line "A Novel Idea"!



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