I’m going to try to read a biography of every US President. I’ve read McCullough’s John Adams and Harry Truman books as well as Bill Clinton’s My Life.
So, any suggestions as to good books on the various presidents? I am going to skip George W. Bush for now as he is still in office and I don’t think a defenitive biography can be written until he is out of office. I am also going to try to stick to biographies which focus heavily on the person’s role as president and how their life influenced their actions as president. So, I’m not looking for books which concentrate exclusively on Grant the General or Taft the Justice as much as books which focus on their presidency. Also, preferably books which try to not simply be an indictment of a particular controversial president.
I have the advantage of living in Ohio and the Columbus Public Library seems to have at least some books on the minor presidents.
I’m not even going to try to go in order so recommend away!
There’s a thread on Grant’s Memoirs which conveys mixed reviews as to their quality – but I tend to trust Mark Twain’s judgment, so I’ll recommend that.
The Sandberg Lincoln biography is pretty much definitive, though it is a multi-volume set.
Wilson was also a notable writer, and probably left some autobiographical material – memoirs or such – though how well it treats his Presidency is questionable, since he was in very poor health from the last year of his presidency until he died not quite two years later.
There’s a wealth of material focusing on FDR, but nothing that stands out to me. (Lash, the best writer of the lot, deals largely with Eleanor, a personal friend, and Franklin as he related to her – an important aspect of the man, but hardly the stuff of comprehensive biography.)
Schlesinger’s books on Kennedy tend to be overly adulatory, but are written from the perspective of a close associate, and valuable for that reason.
Hoover may turn out to be the toughest of the lot – everything I’ve ever seen on him is either focused on the good work he did prior to his Presidency or with a strongly negative view of his Presidency. (His economic policies would have worked if he were facing the Panic of '73 or '93 or '07, where he was demonstrably more liberal and pro-active than the incumbents those years – he simply misjudged the severity of the Great Depression, and then refused to change his views as things got worse.) A balanced treatment of Hoover is something I’d love to read, but don’t think exists.
Actually there’s been two good recent biographies of Cleveland; Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character by Alyn Brodsky and An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland by H. P. Jeffers.
You might also want to check out the American Presidents series which was edited by Arthur Schlesinger. It was a collected series of biographies of all the presidents. Each volume was written by a different author.
The Presidency of Franklin Pierce by Larry Gara is probably your best bet. There was a small press run of a newer bio of Pierce, but it was only being sold at his birthplace in New Hampshire I believe.]
You can also look for The Life of Franklin Pierce which was written in 1852 by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I found a book called Woodrow Wilson’s Own Story by Woodrow Wilson in the library catalog and placed it on reserve. The library’s web site have any much information except that it is a first edition but published 1952? Should be interesting.
Which Harrison is the one that caught cold and died about a month after taking office? William Henry or Benjiman. Anyway, do you think there’s a biography out there on that guy?
George Washington Volumes I-VI by Douglas Southall Freeman, and Volume VII, by John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth. Andrew Jackson by Marquis James. Grant: A Biography by William McFeely. Grover Cleveland by Allan Nevins. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. The Taft Story by William S. White. Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet by Arthur Walworth. Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash. A Thousand Days, about John F. Kennedy, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
All of these won the Pulitzer Prize for biography. You’ve already read the McCullough biographies of Truman and Adams, which would also be on this list.
