Book picks similar to
William McKinley and His America by H. Wayne Morgan


presidents
presidential-biographies
biography
history

Through Five Administrations: Inside the White House


William H. Crook - 1909
    Crook's memoir brings an astonishing array of personal details of life in the executive mansion. His sensitive observations of Lincoln are especially moving.A well-known figure in Washington, Crook knew every president from Lincoln until Crook's death in 1915. He was a keen observer and his stories will entertain and sometimes surprise you.

Bush at War


Bob Woodward - 2002
    Bush. Before the acts of terrorism on 11 September, George W. Bush's presidency had been beset by numerous problems. Not only was it in many peoples eyes invalid, very few people took him seriously as a world statesman. Then following one violent mindless act of terrorism, George W. Bush became a president that his country could rely on, one they felt they could trust to lead them through these difficult times. And the world saw a man who was decisive and resolute, a president who was seemingly determined to route out the people who had carried out the heinous acts. But one year after the attacks how has the 44th President of the United States fared? And what were the actual behind the scenes discussions that took place whilst the country was rocked by the crisis? Bob Woodward has been shadowing the President since those fateful events, he was allowed unprecedented access to closed-door meetings and briefings and this masterful book is a look at what really happened.

Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy


Nathaniel Philbrick - 2021
    . . is quintessential Philbrick--a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement." --The Boston GlobeDoes George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington's unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all thirteen former colonies, which were now an unsure nation. Travels with George marks a new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into a single narrative.When George Washington became president in 1789, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative political experiment. Washington undertook a tour of the ex-colonies to talk to ordinary citizens about his new government, and to imbue in them the idea of being one thing--Americans.In the fall of 2018, Nathaniel Philbrick embarked on his own journey into what Washington called "the infant woody country" to see for himself what America had become in the 229 years since. Writing in a thoughtful first person about his own adventures with his wife, Melissa, and their dog, Dora, Philbrick follows Washington's presidential excursions: from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York; a monthlong tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; a venture onto Long Island and eventually across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The narrative moves smoothly between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries as we see the country through both Washington's and Philbrick's eyes.Written at a moment when America's founding figures are under increasing scrutiny, Travels with George grapples bluntly and honestly with Washington's legacy as a man of the people, a reluctant president, and a plantation owner who held people in slavery. At historic houses and landmarks, Philbrick reports on the reinterpretations at work as he meets reenactors, tour guides, and other keepers of history's flame. He paints a picture of eighteenth-century America as divided and fraught as it is today, and he comes to understand how Washington compelled, enticed, stood up to, and listened to the many different people he met along the way--and how his all-consuming belief in the union helped to forge a nation.

The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War


Edward J. Renehan Jr. - 1998
    Renehan, Jr. vividly portrays the grand idealism, heroic bravery, and reckless abandon that Theodore Roosevelt both embodied and bequeathed to his children and the tragic fulfillment of that legacy on the battlefields of World War I. Drawing upon a wealth of previously unavailable materials, including letters and unpublished memoirs, The Lion's Pride takes us inside what is surely the most extraordinary family ever to occupy the White House. Theodore Roosevelt believed deeply that those who had been blessed with wealth, influence, and education were duty bound to lead, even--perhaps especially--if it meant risking their lives to preserve the ideals of democratic civilization. Teddy put his principles, and his life, to the test in the Spanish American war, and raised his children to believe they could do no less. When America finally entered the European conflict in 1917, all four of his sons eagerly enlisted and used their influence not to avoid the front lines but to get there as quickly as possible. Their heroism in France and the Middle East matched their father's at San Juan Hill. All performed with selfless--some said heedless--courage: Two of the boys, Archie and Ted, Jr., were seriously wounded, and Quentin, the youngest, was killed in a dogfight with seven German planes. Thus, the war that Teddy had lobbied for so furiously brought home a grief that broke his heart. He was buried a few months after his youngest child. Filled with the voices of the entire Roosevelt family, The Lion's Pride gives us the most intimate and moving portrait ever published of the fierce bond between Teddy Roosevelt and his remarkable children.

The Vantage Point: Perspectives Of The Presidency 1963-1969


Lyndon B. Johnson - 1971
    Johnson penned this volume as an autobiography from his years in the White House and as Pres. Kennedy's VP. He quite well not only discusses his Presidency but devotes sections of the volume to Vietnam worthy of mention and consideration.Along with Ed Moise's most inclusive and thorough bibliography on Vietman history, this volume will provide both broad and detailed additional material, quite accurately for those who wish to understand the Vietnam years leading up to 1969-1970 when a change in US Goverment took place.

When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan


Peggy Noonan - 2001
    In When Character Was King, Noonan brings her own reflections on Reagan to bear as well as new stories--from Presidents George W. Bush and his father, George H. W. Bush, his Secret Service men and White House colleagues, his wife, his daughter Patti Davis, and his close friends--to reveal the true nature of a man even his opponents now view as a maker of big history. Marked by incisive wit and elegant prose, When Character Was King will both enlighten and move readers. It may well be the last word on Ronald Reagan, not only as a leader but as a man.

Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents


Robert Strauss - 2016
    President. Ever. flips the great presidential biography on its head, offering an enlightening and highly entertaining account of poor James Buchanan's presidency to prove once and for all that, well, few leaders could have done worse. But author Robert Strauss does much more, leading readers out of Buchanan's terrible term in office meddling in the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, exacerbating the Panic of 1857, helping foment the John Brown uprisings and Bloody Kansas, virtually inviting a half-dozen states to secede from the Union as a lame duck, and on and on to explore with insight and humor his own obsession with presidents, and ultimately the entire notion of ranking our presidents. He guides us through the POTUS rating game of historians and others who have made their own Mount Rushmores or Marianas Trenches of presidential achievement, showing why Buchanan easily loses to any of the others, but also offering insights into presidential history buffs like himself, the forgotten "lesser" presidential sites, sex and the presidency, the presidency itself, and how and why it can often take the best measures out of even the most dedicated men.