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All Time Faves: Our favorite...Presidential Biographies
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John Adams Winner-2002 Pulitzer Prize for Biography |
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John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life Nagel, Paul C. 1999/04 - Harvard University Press 9780674479401 Find It
John Quincy Adams was raised, educated, and groomed to be President, following in the footsteps of his father, John. At fourteen he was secretary to the Minister to Russia and, later, was himself Minister to the Netherlands and Prussia. He was U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and then President for one ill-fated term. His private life showed a parallel descent. He was a poet, writer, critic, and Professor of Oratory at Harvard. He married a talented and engaging Southerner, but two of his three sons were disappointments. This polymath and troubled man, caught up in both a democratic age not to his understanding and the furies of passion, was an American lion in winter. ...More |
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Eisenhower: Soldier and President Stephen E. Ambrose draws upon extensive sources, an unprecedented degree of scholarship, and numerous interviews with Eisenhower himself to offer the fullest, richest, and most objective rendering yet of the soldier who became president. ...More |
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Grant Winner - 2002 ALA Non-Fiction Notable Selection |
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Herbert Hoover Renowned New Deal historian Leuchtenburg offers a frank, thoughtful portrait of the lifelong public servant, and shrewdly assesses Hoover's policies and legacy in the face of one of the darkest periods of American history--the Great Depression. ...More |
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American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House BookPage Notable Title |
 
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American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson Winner - 1997 National Book Award for Nonfiction |
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Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream Doris Kearns Goodwin's classic life of Lyndon Johnson, who presided over the Great Society, the Vietnam War, and other defining moments the tumultuous 1960s, is a monument in political biography. From the moment the author, then a young woman from Harvard, first encountered President Johnson at a White House dance in the spring of 1967, she became fascinated by the man--his character, his enormous energy and drive, and his manner of wielding these gifts in an endless pursuit of power. As a member of his White House staff, she soon became his personal confidante, and in the years before his death he revealed himself to her as he did to no other. |
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An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 An Unfinished Life" is the first major, single-volume life of John F. Kennedy to be written by a historian in nearly four decades. The author draws upon previously unavailable material and never-before-opened archives to tell Kennedys' story. 50 photos. ...More |
 
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With Malice Toward None: Life of Abraham Lincoln This masterful and moving biography follows Lincoln's bitter struggle with poverty, his self-made success in business and law, his early disappointing political career, and his leadership as President during one of America's most turbulent periods. 48 halftone illustrations. ...More |
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Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years & the War Years The definitive biography of one of America's greatest presidents recounts the fascinating log-cabin-to-the-White House success story and describes the complex individual who became an outstanding leader. ...More |
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FDR From Pulitzer finalist Smith comes another lucid, well-written, tightly organized biography. The Roosevelt that emerges from this book is a man of enormous complexity. ...More |
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Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt "Mornings on Horseback" is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (John A. Gable, "Newsday)," it is the winner of the "Los Angeles Times" 1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography. Written by David McCullough, the author of "Truman," this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised. ...More |
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Harry S. Truman BookPage Notable Title |
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Truman Winner - 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Biography |
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His Excellency: George Washington BookPage Notable Title |
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Woodrow Wilson An acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist offers a clear, comprehensive, and timely account of Wilson's unusual route to the White House, his campaign against corporate interests, and his decline in popularity and health following the rejection by Congress of his League of Nations. ...More |