I’m about 125 pages into John Adams by David McCullough–very enjoyable so far. What are some other presidential biographies worth reading? Are McCullough’s bios of Teddy Roosevelt and Truman as good as the bio of Adams? I know Lou Cannon’s biography of Reagan is considered the best bio of Reagan. How about American Sphinx (Jefferson) by Joseph Ellis? Others?
Lately I’ve been listening to, and enjoying, some of the audiotapes in the “Character Above All” series of speeches about the presidents from FDR through Bush I. Each president is discussed by an expert on that president (for example, McCullough does the one on Truman), in a mix of biographical detail and analysis of the man as a person, as a politician, and as a president, with a pretty fair appraisal of their strengths and weaknesses. The ones I’ve listened to so far have been insightful, informative, and enjoyable and have given me new appreciation for their subjects. All 10 of the speeches have been collected and published in book form (which is what my link is to).
I thought McCullough’s bio of Truman was a good look at his complexities, although I have an aversion to 900-page books. I didn’t read his book on Roosevelt, but I can recommend Edmund Morris on him.
American Sphinx is a fascinating look at Jefferson, but it isn’t a conventional biography. It’s an examination of Jefferson’s evolving beliefs that assumes a ready familiarity with his life.
For biographies of the less scrutinized presidents, I’m having tremendous fun working my way through the American Presidents series. They’re short (~150 page) books that concentrate on their political lives leading up to their presidencies and an examination of their success as presidents. They’re all pretty favorable to their subjects - the execrable Buchanan excepted - but that certainly makes for a different and enlightening, if not always convincing, take on such presidents as Van Buren and Harding.
Here is a thread I started earlier about the same topic.
Thanks, dalej42. How did it go? Any books you definitely recommend or definitely give the thumbs down to?