Best of
Presidents

2012

The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity


Nancy Gibbs - 2012
    Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The unspoken pact between a father and son named Bush. And the roots of the rivalry between Clinton and Barack Obama. Time magazine editors and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy offer a new and revealing lens on the American presidency, exploring the club as a hidden instrument of power that has changed the course of history.

Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year


David von Drehle - 2012
    The federal government appeared overwhelmed, the U.S. Treasury was broke, and the Union's top general was gravely ill. The Confederacy--with its booming economy, expert military leadership, and commanding position on the battlefield--had a clear view to victory. To a remarkable extent, the survival of the country depended on the judgment, cunning, and resilience of the unschooled frontier lawyer who had recently been elected president.Twelve months later, the Civil War had become a cataclysm but the tide had turned. The Union generals who would win the war had at last emerged, and the Confederate Army had suffered the key losses that would lead to its doom. The blueprint of modern America--an expanding colossus of industrial and financial might--had been indelibly inked. And the man who brought the nation through its darkest hour, Abraham Lincoln, had been forged into a singular leader.In Rise to Greatness, acclaimed author David Von Drehle has created both a deeply human portrait of America's greatest president and a rich, dramatic narrative about our most fateful year.

The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace


H.W. Brands - 2012
    W. Brands, a masterful biography of the Civil War general and two-term president who saved the Union twice, on the battlefield and in the White House, holding the country together at two critical turning points in our history.Ulysses Grant rose from obscurity to discover he had a genius for battle, and he propelled the Union to victory in the Civil War. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination and the disastrous brief presidency of Andrew Johnson, America turned to Grant again to unite the country, this time as president. In Brands's sweeping, majestic full biography, Grant emerges as a heroic figure who was fearlessly on the side of right. He was a beloved commander in the field but willing to make the troop sacrifices necessary to win the war, even in the face of storms of criticism. He worked valiantly to protect the rights of freedmen in the South; Brands calls him the last presidential defender of black civil rights for nearly a century. He played it straight with the American Indians, allowing them to shape their own fate even as the realities of Manifest Destiny meant the end of their way of life.  He was an enormously popular president whose memoirs were a huge bestseller; yet within decades of his death his reputation was in tatters, the victim of Southerners who resented his policies on Reconstruction. In this page-turning biography, Brands now reconsiders Grant's legacy and provides a compelling and intimate portrait of a man who saved the Union on the battlefield and consolidated that victory as a resolute and principled political leader.

Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume One


Michael Burlingame - 2012
    Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America's sixteenth president.Volume 1 covers Lincoln's early childhood, his experiences as a farm boy in Indiana and Illinois, his legal training, and the political ambition that led to a term in Congress in the 1840s. In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's life during his presidency and the Civil War, narrating in fascinating detail the crisis over Fort Sumter and Lincoln's own battles with relentless office seekers, hostile newspaper editors, and incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also offers new interpretations of Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd and the untimely deaths of two sons to disease.But through it all—his difficult childhood, his contentious political career, a fratricidal war, and tragic personal losses—Lincoln preserved a keen sense of humor and acquired a psychological maturity that proved to be the North's most valuable asset in winning the Civil War.Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, this landmark publication establishes Burlingame as the most assiduous Lincoln biographer of recent memory and brings Lincoln alive to modern readers as never before.

Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two


Michael Burlingame - 2012
    Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America's sixteenth president.Volume 1 covers Lincoln's early childhood, his experiences as a farm boy in Indiana and Illinois, his legal training, and the political ambition that led to a term in Congress in the 1840s. In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's life during his presidency and the Civil War, narrating in fascinating detail the crisis over Fort Sumter and Lincoln's own battles with relentless office seekers, hostile newspaper editors, and incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also offers new interpretations of Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd and the untimely deaths of two sons to disease.But through it all—his difficult childhood, his contentious political career, a fratricidal war, and tragic personal losses—Lincoln preserved a keen sense of humor and acquired a psychological maturity that proved to be the North's most valuable asset in winning the Civil War.Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, this landmark publication establishes Burlingame as the most assiduous Lincoln biographer of recent memory and brings Lincoln alive to modern readers as never before.

The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson


David Barton - 2012
    Its roots, its purpose, its identity―all have become shrouded behind a veil of political correctness bent on twisting the nation's founding, and its founders, to fit within a misshapen modern world.The time has come to remember again.In "The Jefferson Lies," prominent historian David Barton sets out to correct the distorted image of a once-beloved founding father, Thomas Jefferson. To do so, Barton tackles seven myths head-on, including:Did Thomas Jefferson really have a child by his young slave girl, Sally Hemings? Did he write his own Bible, excluding the parts of Christianity with which he disagreed? Was he a racist who opposed civil rights and equality for black Americans? Did he, in his pursuit of separation of church and state, advocate the secularizing public life?Through Jefferson's own words and the eyewitness testimony of contemporaries, Barton repaints a portrait of the man from Monticello as a visionary, an innovator, a man who revered Jesus, a classical Renaissance man―and a man whose pioneering stand for liberty and God-given inalienable rights fostered a better world for this nation and its posterity. For America, the time to remember these truths again is now.

Barack Obama: The Story


David Maraniss - 2012
    In Barack Obama: The Story, David Maraniss has written a deeply reported generational biography teeming with fresh insights and revealing information, a masterly narrative drawn from hundreds of interviews, including with President Obama in the Oval Office, and a trove of letters, journals, diaries, and other documents. The book unfolds in the small towns of Kansas and the remote villages of western Kenya, following the personal struggles of Obama’s white and black ancestors through the swirl of the twentieth century. It is a roots story on a global scale, a saga of constant movement, frustration and accomplishment, strong women and weak men, hopes lost and deferred, people leaving and being left. Disparate family threads converge in the climactic chapters as Obama reaches adulthood and travels from Honolulu to Los Angeles to New York to Chicago, trying to make sense of his past, establish his own identity, and prepare for his political future. Barack Obama: The Story chronicles as never before the forces that shaped the first black president of the United States and explains why he thinks and acts as he does. Much like the author’s classic study of Bill Clinton, First in His Class, this promises to become a seminal book that will redefine a president.

Roosevelt's Centurions: FDR & the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II


Joseph E. Persico - 2012
    Few perform as such in practice. In Roosevelt’s Centurions, distinguished historian Joseph E. Persico reveals how, during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt seized the levers of wartime power like no president since Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Declaring himself “Dr. Win-the-War,” FDR assumed the role of strategist in chief, and, though surrounded by star-studded generals and admirals, he made clear who was running the war. FDR was a hands-on war leader, involving himself in everything from choosing bomber targets to planning naval convoys to the design of landing craft. Persico explores whether his strategic decisions, including his insistence on the Axis powers’ unconditional surrender, helped end or may have prolonged the war.   Taking us inside the Allied war councils, the author reveals how the president brokered strategy with contentious allies, particularly the iron-willed Winston Churchill; rallied morale on the home front; and handpicked a team of proud, sometimes prickly warriors who, he believed, could fight a global war. Persico’s history offers indelible portraits of the outsize figures who roused the “sleeping giant” that defeated the Axis war machine: the dutiful yet independent-minded George C. Marshall, charged with rebuilding an army whose troops trained with broomsticks for rifles, eggs for hand grenades; Dwight Eisenhower, an unassuming Kansan elevated from obscurity to command of the greatest fighting force ever assembled; the vainglorious Douglas MacArthur; and the bizarre battlefield genius George S. Patton. Here too are less widely celebrated military leaders whose contributions were just as critical: the irascible, dictatorial navy chief, Ernest King; the acerbic army advisor in China, “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell; and Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, who zealously preached the gospel of modern air power. The Roosevelt who emerges from these pages is a wartime chess master guiding America’s armed forces to a victory that was anything but foreordained.   What are the qualities we look for in a commander in chief? In an era of renewed conflict, when Americans are again confronting the questions that FDR faced—about the nature and exercise of global power—Roosevelt’s Centurions is a timely and revealing examination of what it takes to be a wartime leader in a freewheeling, complicated, and tumultuous democracy.Praise for Roosevelt’s Centurions  “FDR’s centurions were my heroes and guides. Now Joe Persico has written the best account of those leaders I've ever read.”—Colin L. Powell   “Benefiting from his years of studying Franklin Roosevelt and his times, Joseph Persico has brought us a briskly paced story with much wisdom and new insights on FDR, his military liege men, World War II, and political and military leadership.”—Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789–1989  “Long wars demand long books, but these are 550 pages of lively prose by a good writer who knows his subject. . . . A fine, straightforward politics-and-great-men history.” —Kirkus Reviews   “Persico makes a persuasive case that FDR was clearly in charge of the most important decisions of the American war plan.” —The Washington Times

Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency


Mark K. Updegrove - 2012
    Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson remains a largely misunderstood figure. His force of personal­ity, mastery of power and the political process, and boundless appetite for social reform made him one of the towering figures of his time. But he was one of the most protean and paradoxical of presidents as well. Because of his flawed nature and inherent contradic­tions, some claimed there were as many LBJs as there were people who knew him.  Intent on fulfilling the promise of America, Johnson launched a revolution in civil rights, federal aid to education, and health care for the elderly and indigent, and expanded immigration and environ­mental protection. A flurry of landmark laws—he would sign an unparalleled 207 during his five years in office, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Elementary and Second­ary Education Act, Head Start, and Medicare—are testaments to the triumph of his will. His War on Poverty alone brought the U.S. poverty rate down from 20 percent to 12 percent, the biggest one-time drop in American history. As president, he was known for getting things done.  At the same time, Johnson’s presidency—and the fulfillment of its own promise—was blighted by his escalation of an ill-fated war in Vietnam that tore at the fabric of America and saw the loss of 36,000 U.S. troops by the end of his term.  Presidential historian Mark K. Updegrove offers an intimate portrait of the endlessly fas­cinating LBJ, his extraordinarily eventful presi­dency, and the turbulent times in which he served. We see Johnson in his many guises and dimen­sions: the virtuoso deal-maker using every inch of his six-foot-three-inch frame to intimidate his subjects, the relentless reformer willing to lose southern Democrats from his party for a generation in his pursuit of civil rights for all Americans, and the embattled commander in chief agonizing over the fate of his “boys” in Vietnam—including his two sons-in-law—yet steadfast in his determination to thwart Communist aggression through war, or an honorable peace. Through original interviews and personal accounts from White House aides and Cabinet members, political allies and foes, and friends and family—from Robert McNamara to Barry Goldwa­ter, Lady Bird Johnson to Jacqueline Kennedy—as well as through Johnson’s own candid reflections and historic White House telephone conversa­tions, Indomitable Will reveals LBJ as never before. “ For it is through firsthand narrative more than anything,” writes Updegrove, “that Lyndon John­son—who teemed with vitality in his sixty-four years and remains enigmatic nearly four decades after his passing—comes to life.”

The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan


Carol Kelly-Gangi - 2012
    

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales' Second 3-Book Box Set


Nathan Hale - 2012
    In this boxed set, readers will discover the race to build the best ironclad warships in Big Bad Ironclad: A Civil War Tale, travel with the ill-fated Donner Party expedition in Donner Dinner Party: A Pioneer Tale, and learn just why we should "Remember the Alamo" in Alamo All-Stars: A Texas Tale.Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales are graphic novels that tell the thrilling, shocking, gruesome, and TRUE stories of American history. Read them all--if you dare!

The President's Stuck in the Bathtub: Poems About the Presidents


Susan Katz - 2012
    It’s true! In The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub, the lives of the presidents are served up as fact-filled and fanciful poems that will make you laugh, cringe, and gasp with amazement at the colorful cast of men and women who have lived in the White House. With footnotes relating the facts behind the inspiration for each poem, and a section called “Presidential Notes and Quotes” in the back, this is one hilarious history lesson that kids will elect to read over and over again!

The Corruption Chronicles: Obama's Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government


Tom Fitton - 2012
    president; it was the very cornerstone of his campaign. No secrets. No masks. No smoke and mirrors. No excuses. But over the next four years, President Obama’s administration would prove to be one of the most guarded and duplicitous of our time. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, America’s largest nonpartisan government watchdog (challenging George W. Bush as well as Bill Clinton), has been investigating Obama ever since he splashed onto the national scene in 2006. Now Fitton exposes devastating secrets the Obama administration has desperately fought—even in court—to keep from the American public. For a while, the Obama stonewall seemed to be holding. Until now. And the revelations are astonishing. Judicial Watch has unearthed the truth behind such high-profile issues as the bailouts, Obamacare, Guantanamo, Obama’s true ties to Bill Ayers and to the Black Panthers voting intimidation scandal, and the Constitution-defying government czars. He reveals Obama’s personal war against FOX News, his real link to ACORN, and his radical Chicago connections. Through scores of smoking-gun government files, some replicated here and many unearthed after lengthy court battles, Fitton also discloses the facts of the Obama-backed $535-million loan guarantee to Solyndra, promoted by the president as a model for economic recovery—only months before its disastrous bankruptcy filing. Here too is the truth behind the gunrunning scandal, code-named Fast and Furious, which was a program generated in secrecy by the U.S. government that supplied thousands of firearms to murderous criminals in Mexico—an unconscionable act, and only one in a series of historical lows for an administration that few, if any, major media in this country dare to expose. This book details how the Obama machine is aggressively employing Chicago-style tactics to steal, if necessary, the 2012 elections. And how Judicial Watch is prepared to go to court with historic lawsuits to make sure the elections are fair and honest. Why do Obama supporters turn a blind eye to his astoundingly unethical and abusive approach to governing this country? The Corruption Chronicles boldly, honestly, and factually makes the case that the federal government is now off the rails and out of control, and has literally built its foundation on broken promises, fatal miscalculations, and a cynical manipulation of its trusting public. But it’s not over. Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch are proof that the Tea Party approach to government corruption can make a difference. A grassroots group can take on the president, the Congress, and the judiciary, and finally force the government to be held accountable. The uncontestable facts are here, in The Corruption Chronicles. To see what is true, you only have to look.  THE FULLY DOCUMENTED FACTS BEHIND: • The Solyndra Debacle • Obama’s Watergate: Operation Fast and Furious • The Obama Administration’s $20 Billion Government Extortion Scheme • The Unprecedented Threat to the Integrity of the 2012 Elections • The Czar Investigation Stonewall • The Undermining of Our Nation’s Immigration Laws • 9/11 Secrets

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power


Jon Meacham - 2012
    Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history. The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion. The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.

Presidential Campaign Posters: Two Hundred Years of Election Art


Library of Congress - 2012
    The posters are backed with colorful historical commentary and additional artwork; best of all, they’re bound with clean microperforated edges so they can be removed, framed, and displayed. Presidential Campaign Posters is the perfect gift for political junkies of all ages!

George Washington: Gentleman Warrior


Stephen Brumwell - 2012
    The book focuses on a side of Washington that is often overlooked: the feisty young frontier officer and the early career of the tough forty-something commander of the revolutionaries' ragtag Continental Army.Award-winning historian Stephen Brumwell shows how, ironically, Washington's reliance upon English models of "gentlemanly" conduct, and on British military organization, was crucial in establishing his leadership of the fledgling Continental Army, and in forging it into the weapon that secured American independence. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including original archival research, Brumwell brings a fresh new perspective on this extraordinary individual, whose fusion of gentleman and warrior left an indelible imprint on history.

Eisenhower in War and Peace


Jean Edward Smith - 2012
    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 peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America’s thirty-fourth president. As America searches for new heroes to lead it out of its present-day predicaments, Jean Edward Smith’s achievement lies in reintroducing us to a hero from the past whose virtues have become clouded in the mists of history. Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kansas, to West Point, to Paris under Pershing, and beyond. Drawing on a wealth of untapped primary sources, Smith provides new insight into Ike’s maddening apprenticeship under Douglas MacArthur in Washington and the Philippines. Then the whole panorama of World War II unfolds, with Eisenhower’s superlative generalship forging the Allied path to victory through multiple reversals of fortune in North Africa and Italy, culminating in the triumphant invasion of Normandy. Smith also gives us an intriguing examination of Ike’s finances, details his wartime affair with Kay Summersby, and reveals the inside story of the 1952 Republican convention that catapulted him to the White House.Smith’s chronicle of Eisenhower’s presidential years is as compelling as it is comprehensive. Derided by his detractors as a somnambulant caretaker, Eisenhower emerges in Smith’s perceptive retelling as both a canny politician and a skillful, decisive leader. Smith convincingly portrays an Eisenhower who engineered an end to America’s three-year no-win war in Korea, resisted calls for preventative wars against the Soviet Union and China, and boldly deployed the Seventh Fleet to protect Formosa from invasion. This Eisenhower, Smith shows us, stared down Khrushchev over Berlin and forced the withdrawal of British, French, and Israeli forces from the Suez Canal. He managed not only to keep the peace—after Ike made peace in Korea, not one American soldier was killed in action during his tenure—but also to enhance America’s prestige in the Middle East and throughout the world.Domestically, Eisenhower reduced defense spending, balanced the budget, constructed the interstate highway system, and provided social security coverage for millions who were self-employed. Ike believed that traditional American values encompassed change and progress.Unmatched in insight, Eisenhower in War and Peace at last gives us an Eisenhower for our time—and for the ages.Praise for Eisenhower in War and Peace   “[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhower’s] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.”—The Washington Post   “Highly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhower’s] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements.”—The Wall Street Journal   “Always engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D’Este, this is the best.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Those Who Labor for My Happiness": Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello (Jeffersonian America)


Lucia C. Stanton - 2012
    The image of an estate presided over by a benevolent Thomas Jefferson has given wayto a more complex view of Monticello as a working plantation, the success of which was made possibleby the work of slaves. At the center of this transition has been the work of Lucia"Cinder" Stanton, recognized as the leading interpreter of Jefferson’s life as aplanter and master and of the lives of his slaves and their descendants. This volume represents thefirst attempt to pull together Stanton’s most important writings on slavery at Monticello andbeyond.Stanton’s pioneering work deepened our understanding of Jeffersonwithout demonizing him. But perhaps even more important is the light her writings have shed on thelives of the slaves at Monticello. Her detailed reconstruction for modern readers of slaves’lives vividly reveals their active roles in the creation of Monticello and a dynamic communitypreviously unimagined. The essays collected here address a rich variety of topics, from familyhistories (including the Hemingses) to the temporary slave community at Jefferson’s WhiteHouse to stories of former slaves’ lives after Monticello. Each piece is characterized byStanton’s deep knowledge of her subject and by her determination to do justice to bothJefferson and his slaves.Published in association with the Thomas JeffersonFoundation.

Lonely Planet Pocket San Francisco


Alison Bing - 2012
    Watch fog creep beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, ride a cable car past stately Victorians, or taste the best of California cuisine at the Ferry Building; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of the best of San Francisco and begin your journey now!Inside Lonely Planet's Pocket San Francisco:Full-color maps and images throughout Highlightsand itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests Insider tips save you time and money and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential infoat your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices Honest reviewsfor all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Free, convenient pull-out San Francisco map (included in print version), plus over 15 color neighborhood maps User-friendly layout with helpful icons, and organized by neighborhood to help you determine the best spots to spend your time Coverage of Golden Gate Bridge, The Marina, Fisherman's Wharf, North Beach, Chinatown, Downtown, SoMa, Hayes Valley, Civic Center, The Mission, The Haight, Golden Gate Park, and more The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet's Pocket San Francisco is a handy guide that literally fits in your pocket, providing on-the-go assistance to travelers who seek only the can't-miss experiences. Colorful and easy-to-use, this neighborhood-focused guide includes unique local recommendations to maximize your quick-trip experience.Looking for a comprehensive guide that recommends a wide range of experiences, both popular and offbeat, and extensively covers all of San Francisco's neighborhoods? Check out Lonely Planet's San Francisco guide, or Lonely Planet's Discover San Francisco, a photo-rich guide to all of the city's most popular attractions.Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's California guide for a comprehensive look at all the state has to offer, or Lonely Planet's Discover California, a photo-rich guide to the state's most popular attractions.Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Alison Bing and John A Vlahides.About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveler community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travelers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in."TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category""'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' "-The New York Times"'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' "-Fairfax Media (Australia)

General Grant and the Rewriting of History: How the Destruction of General William S. Rosecrans Influenced Our Understanding of the Civil War


Frank P. Varney - 2012
    An entire generation of Americans had eagerly awaited his memoirs and it has remained so popular that it has never gone out of print. Historians then and now have made extensive use of Grant's recollections, which have shaped how we understand and evaluate not only the Union army's triumphs and failures, but many of the war's key participants. The Memoirs of Ulysses Simpson Grant may be a superbly written book, Frank P. Varney persuasively argues in General Grant and the Rewriting of History, but is so riddled with flaws as to be unreliable.Juxtaposing primary source documents (some of them published here for the first time) against Grant's own pen and other sources, Professor Varney sheds new light on what really happened on some of the Civil War's most important battlefields. He does so by focusing much of his work on Grant's treatment of Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, a capable army commander whose reputation Grant (and others working with him) conspired to destroy. Grant's memoirs contain not only misstatements but outright inventions to manipulate the historical record. But Grant's injustices go much deeper. He submitted decidedly biased reports, falsified official documents, and even perjured himself before an army court of inquiry. There is also strong evidence that his often-discussed drinking problem affected the outcome of at least one battle.General Grant was an outstanding soldier and, so we have long believed, a good man. History's wholesale acceptance of his version of events has distorted our assessment of Rosecrans and other officers, and even of the Civil War itself. Grant intentionally tried to control how future generations would remember the Civil War, and in large measure he succeeded. The first of two volumes on this subject, General Grant and the Rewriting of History aptly demonstrates, however, that blindly accepting historical "truths" without vigorous challenge is a perilous path to understanding real history.

Ronald Reagan Our 40th President


Winston Groom - 2012
    He was one of America’s true greats. As president, he changed the world, developing a successful strategy for defeating Communism, toppling the Soviet Union, and liberating Eastern Europe (while hardly firing a shot). And just as important, he restored an America that had found itself mired in a malaise of falling living standards, moral decay, and what seemed like inevitable decline. Though he was our oldest president, Reagan acted as a tonic, rejuvenating America’s economy, restoring her confidence, and attracting a majority of young voters won over by his vision of making America once again a shining city on a hill. In this superlative biography for young adults, bestselling author Winston Groom—author of Forrest Gump—gives us the full Reagan, from his Midwestern American boyhood, to his early career as a radio sports announcer, to his days as a Hollywood star and his extraordinary political career as a union leader, governor of California, and president of the United States. Covering the gamut of Reagan’s dramatic life, Ronald Reagan: Our 40th President is essential reading, as inspiring as its subject.

The Battles That Made Abraham Lincoln: How Lincoln Mastered His Enemies to Win the Civil War, Free the Slaves, and Preserve the Union


Larry Tagg - 2012
    It was not always so. Larry Tagg s The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln is the first study of its kind to concentrate on what Lincoln s contemporaries thought of him during his lifetime, and the obstacles they set before him. Be forewarned: your preconceived notions are about to be shattered.Torn by civil war, the era in which our sixteenth president lived and governed was the most rough-and-tumble in the history of American politics. The violence of the criticism with which Lincoln had to deal came from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line and was overwhelming. Indeed, the breadth and depth of the spectacular prejudice against him is often shocking for its cruelty, intensity, and unrelenting vigor. The plain truth is that Mr. Lincoln was deeply reviled by many who knew him personally, and by hundreds of thousands who only knew of him. His rise to greatness was in spite of their vitriol.Boisterous and venomous enough to be good entertainment, The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln rests upon a wide foundation of research. Tagg includes extensive treatment of the political context that begat Lincoln s predicament, riding with the president-elect to Washington and walking with him through the bleak years of war up to and beyond assassination. Throughout, Tagg entertains with a lively writing style, outstanding storytelling verve, and an unconventional, wholly against-the-grain perspective that is sure to delight readers of all stripes.Lincoln s humanity has been unintentionally trivialized by some historians and writers who have obscured the real man behind a patina of bronze. Tagg s groundbreaking book helps all of us better understand the great man Lincoln was, and how history is better viewed through a long-distance lens than contemporaneously. The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln will be the must-read title for general readers and scholars alike.REVIEWS This is a well-written and edited book. Much to its credit, it is devoid of an author s opinion and presents the information in a straightforward manner and is a valuable addition to the Lincoln library, and a must for serious students. Civil War News The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln is beautifully written, with an almost rhythmic cadence at times. . . . it deserves a lofty place in the pantheon of Lincoln literature. Geoff Elliott, The Abraham Lincoln Blog The author has done an impressive amount of research. . . . an impressive work. Sacramento Book Review This is a tour de force demonstration of writing, reading, and thinking that never lets the reader down. Easily the Lincoln book of the Bicentennial of his birth and the best Lincoln tome I have seen in 15 years of compiling and reviewing Civil War book releases. Dimitri Rotov, Civil War Bookshelf"

A Passion to Lead: Theodore Roosevelt in His Own Words


Theodore Roosevelt - 2012
    A Passion to Lead is a collection of excerpts from his writings--his autobiography, memoirs such as Rough Riders, speeches, articles, and letters--that bring the man to life in his own eloquent words. Along with the text are images (some never before published) that give added dimension to the man and his era.

Understanding Presidential Elections: The Constitution, Caucuses, Primaries, Electoral College, and More


Catherine McGrew Jaime - 2012
    But many students and adults alike do not understand the process by which we elect our president. Are we really casting a vote directly for one of them or for an elector, and what is the difference? And going backwards from November, how did those men and/or women end up on the November ballot in the first place? What is the process of a political party choosing their candidate, through this confusing array of caucuses and primaries that have been held? This little book walks through the constitutional background and basis for this critical office, and then goes through the nomination process of caucuses and primaries, ending with the electoral college process that completes the cycle every four years. (Understanding Presidential Elections includes the booklet, Understanding the Electoral College, so you will not need to purchase that book separately.)

The Obama Presidency, Explained


James M. Fallows - 2012
    

Killing Kennedy: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Kennedy Assassination


Philip Coppens - 2012
    He was set up. By a cabal of CIA employees, the Mafia and Cuban exiles, who killed Kennedy out of vengeance and in the hope of new invasion of Cuba.Almost fifty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the question whether Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, or not, remains one of the most controversial topics in modern history. In “Killing Kennedy”, Philip Coppens shows that Oswald was not the assassin the government claimed he was. Tracing all the evidence – the rifle, prints, bullets, etc. – he finds that the material that inculpated Oswald was not what was found on the scene of the crime. Indeed, the Dallas Police officers themselves, in testimony before the Warren Commission, said that they could not identify the objects as those recovered! There is even evidence – a photograph – that shows Oswald standing outside, watching the motorcade pass by!Coppens shows that the Warren Commission hid behind a legal technicality, so that breaches in the chain of possession of evidence did not need to be considered when the Commission drew its conclusions and made Oswald the lone assassin. But he goes far beyond this conclusion and shows that we can identify the real assassins and who hired them; how, months before the assassination, they began to set Oswald up as a patsy, depicting him as a communist. This trail of disinformation, carefully placed by disgruntled CIA employees and Cuban exiles, guaranteed that President Johnson would order a cover-up: Oswald as the lone assassin. The end result is half a century of lies, which are exposed in this book.

TIME George Washington


Richard Lacayo - 2012
    Now TIME tells the full, fascinating story of the Virginia planter who fought for Britain in the French and Indian War, signed the Declaration of Independence, led a ragtag colonial army to victory over the British Empire -and then became the first President of the United States. With scores of illustrations and artifacts from the period, this lavish volume captures "the essential American" and brings his little-known life and his chaotic, revolutionary times into fresh focus.

How a Nation Grieves: Press Accounts of the Death of Lincoln, the Hunt for Booth, and America in Mourning


Glenn Alan Cheney - 2012
    Foreword by U.S. Representative Joe Courtney. See cheneybooks.com for more information and excerpts.

The Paranormal Presidency of Abraham Lincoln


Christopher K. Coleman - 2012
    However, despite all that has been written about Lincoln, he remains one of the most enigmatic individuals in American history. Explore a little known but important aspect of this most famous figure a facet which has thus far received little serious attention. From his early youth to the very day of his death, Abraham Lincoln was visited by premonitions and visions of the future. He had an innate faith in prophetic dreams, omens, and other paranormal phenomena. Read about the "Lincoln Curse," something that plagued the family even before his untimely death. Learn about Lincoln's interest in mediums and Spiritualism. Delve into the assassination omens prevalent in the time preceding his death as well as documented cases of precognition. View highlighted features of Abraham Lincoln and his presidency not otherwise seen in standard portraits of our sixteenth president.