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biographies
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on the battlefields of World War I. Drawing upon a wealth of previously unavailable materials, including letters and unpublished memoirs, The Lion's Pride takes us inside what is surely the most extraordinary family ever to occupy the White House.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.
Roger Ailes: Off Camera
Ze'ev Chafets - 2013
He more or less invented modern political consulting and helped Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush win their races for the White House. Then he reinvented himself as a master of cable television, first as the head of CNBC and, since 1996, as the creator and leader of Fox News, the most influential news network in the country. To liberals, Ailes is an evil genius who helped polarize the country by breaking the mainstream media’s long monopoly on what constitutes news. To conservatives, he’s a champion of free speech and fair reporting whose values and view of America reflect their own. But no one doubts that Ailes has transformed journalism. Barack Obama once called him “the most powerful man in America”— and given that Fox News has changed the way millions understand the world, it may be true. Yet for all that fame and infamy, very few people know the real person behind the headlines. Journalist Zev Chafets received unprecedented access to Ailes and his family, friends, and Fox News colleagues. The result is a candid, compelling portrait of a fascinating man. We see Ailes in action at Fox News and hear him reflect on personal matters he has never before discussed publicly. And we discover the heart of his sometimes surprising political beliefs: his profane piety and his unwavering belief in the values of his small-town Ohio boyhood. Ailes loves to fight, but he is a happy warrior who has somehow managed to charm and befriend many of the people he has defeated in political campaigns and television wars. Barbara Walters, Rachel Maddow, Jesse Jackson, the Kennedy clan— all are unexpected Ailes fans. Chafets also gives us an unprecedented look at the inner workings of Fox News and explores Ailes’s relationships with Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Neil Cavuto, Chris Wallace, and the other stars he has nurtured. Ultimately, Ailes is neither villain nor hero but a man full of contradictions and surprises. As Chafets writes, “What will he do next? What stokes his competitive fires and occasional rages? How to reconcile his acts of exceptional loyalty and private generosity (even to rivals) with his impulse to present himself to the world as a ruthless leg breaker? What makes Roger run—and where, if anywhere, is the finish line? As Ailes himself might say: I report, you decide.”
Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism
Ronald J. Pestritto - 2005
Yet Wilson is equally important for his influence on how Americans think about their Constitution and principles of government. Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism highlights Wilson's sharp departure from the traditional principles of American government, most notably the Constitution. Ronald J. Pestritto persuasively argues that Wilson's unfailing criticism places him clearly in line with the Progressives' assault on the original principles of American constitutionalism. Drawing primarily from early writings and speeches that Wilson made during his years as a scholar, Pestritto examines the future president's clear and consistent ideologies that laid the foundation for later actions taken as a public leader. Engaging and thought-provoking, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism gets to the heart of Wilson's political ideologies and brings a fresh perspective to the study of American political development.
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.
The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country
Laton McCartney - 2008
The result: the granddaddy of all American political scandals, Teapot Dome.In The Teapot Dome Scandal, acclaimed author Laton McCartney tells the amazing, complex, and at times ribald story of how Big Oil handpicked Warren G. Harding, an obscure Ohio senator, to serve as our twenty-third president. Harding and his so-called “oil cabinet†made it possible for the oilmen to secure vast oil reserves that had been set aside for use by the U.S. Navy. In exchange, the oilmen paid off senior government officials, bribed newspaper publishers, and covered the GOP campaign debt.When news of the scandal finally emerged, the consequences were disastrous for the nation and for the principles in the plot to bilk the taxpayers: Harding’s administration was hamstrung; Americans’ confidence in their government plummeted; Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was indicted, convicted, and incarcerated; and others implicated in the affair suffered similarly dire fates. Stonewalling by members of Harding’s circle kept a lid on the story–witnesses developed “faulty†memories or fled the country, and important documents went missing–but contemporary records newly made available to McCartney reveal a shocking, revelatory picture of just how far-reaching the affair was, how high the stakes, and how powerful the conspirators. In giving us a gimlet-eyed but endlessly entertaining portrait of the men and women who made a tempest of Teapot Dome, Laton McCartney again displays his gift for faithfully rendering history with the narrative touch of an accomplished novelist.
First in Line: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and the Pursuit of Power
Kate Andersen Brower - 2018
Of the forty-eight vice presidents who have served the United States, fourteen have become president; eight of these have risen to the Oval Office because of a president’s death or assassination, and one became president after his boss’s resignation. John Nance Garner, FDR’s first vice president, famously said the vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (later cleaned up to "warm spit"). But things have changed dramatically in recent years. In interviews with more than two hundred people, including former vice presidents, their family members, and insiders and confidants of every president since Jimmy Carter, Kate Andersen Brower pulls back the curtain and reveals the sometimes cold, sometimes close, and always complicated relationship between our modern presidents and their vice presidents.Brower took us inside the lives of the White House staff and gave us an intimate look at the modern First Ladies; now, in her signature style, she introduces us to the second most powerful men in the world, exploring the lives and roles of thirteen modern vice presidents—eight Republicans and five Democrats. And she shares surprising revelations about the relationship between former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama and how Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump interact behind closed doors.From rivals to coworkers, there is a very tangible sense of admiration mixed with jealousy and resentment in nearly all these relationships between the number two and his boss, even the best ones, Brower reveals. Vice presidents owe their position to the president, a connection that affects not only how they are perceived but also their possible future as a presidential candidate—which is tied, for better or worse, to the president they serve. George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had a famously prickly relationship during the 1980 primary, yet Bush would not have been elected president in 1988 without Reagan’s high approval rating. Al Gore’s 2000 loss, meanwhile, could be attributed to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Current Vice President Mike Pence is walking a high-stakes political tightrope as he tries to reassure anxious Republicans while staying on his boss’s good side.This rich dynamic between the president and the vice president has never been fully explored or understood. Compelling and deeply reported, grounded in history and politics, and full of previously untold and incredibly personal stories, First In Line pierces the veil of secrecy enveloping this historic political office to offer us a candid portrait of what it’s truly like to be a heartbeat away.
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy
Jacqueline Kennedy - 2011
Kennedy's centennial, celebrate the life and legacy of the 35th President of the United States.
In 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded seven historic interviews about her life with John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, they can be read in this deluxe, illustrated eBook.Shortly after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband's legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations of Americans by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Kennedy's wishes.The resulting eight and a half hours of material comprises a unique and compelling record of a tumultuous era, providing fresh insights on the many significant people and events that shaped JFK's presidency but also shedding new light on the man behind the momentous decisions. Here are JFK's unscripted opinions on a host of revealing subjects, including his thoughts and feelings about his brothers Robert and Ted, and his take on world leaders past and present, giving us perhaps the most informed, genuine, and immediate portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy we shall ever have. Mrs. Kennedy's urbane perspective, her candor, and her flashes of wit also give us our clearest glimpse into the active mind of a remarkable First Lady.In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's Inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and the Kennedy family are now releasing these beautifully restored recordings on CDs with accompanying transcripts. Introduced and annotated by renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss, these interviews will add an exciting new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of President Kennedy and his time and make the past come alive through the words and voice of an eloquent eyewitness to history.
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.
Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt
Aida D. Donald - 2007
In Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt, historian Aida Donald masterfully chronicles the life of this first modern president. TR’s accomplishments in office were immense. As President, Roosevelt redesigned the office of Chief Executive and the workings of the Republican Party to meet the challenges of the new industrial economy. Believing that the emerging aristocracy of wealth represented a genuine threat to democracy, TR broke trusts to curb the rapacity of big business. He improved economic and social conditions for the average American. Roosevelt built the Panama Canal and engaged the country in world affairs, putting a temporary end to American isolationism. And he won the Nobel Peace Prize-the only sitting president ever so honored. Throughout his public career, TR fought valiantly to steer the GOP back to its noblest ideals as embodied by Abraham Lincoln. Alas, his hopes for his party were quashed by the GOP’s strong rightward turn in the years after he left office. But his vision for America lives on. In lapidary prose, this concise biography recounts the courageous life of one of the greatest leaders our nation has ever known.
Beyond Biden: Rebuilding the America We Love
Newt Gingrich - 2021
These forces have grown so large, so well-financed, so entrenched and aggressive that they must be studied closely and understood completely if America is to survive this imminent civil war.In Beyond Biden, bestselling author Newt Gingrich brings together the various strands of the movement seeking to destroy true, historic American values and replace this country with one that’s imposed on us by the combined power of government and social acceptance.
One Man Great Enough: Abraham Lincoln's Road to Civil War
John C. Waugh - 2007
Waugh takes us on Lincoln’s road to the Civil War. From Lincoln's first public rejection of slavery to his secret arrival in the capital, from his stunning debates with Stephen Douglas to his contemplative moments considering the state of the country he loved, Waugh shows us America as Lincoln saw it and as Lincoln described it. Much of this wonderful story is told by Lincoln himself, detailing through his own writing his emergence onto the political scene and the evolution of his beliefs about the Union, the Constitution, democracy, slavery, and civil war. Waugh brings Lincoln’s path into new reliefby letting the great man tell his own story, at a depth that brings us ever closer to understanding this mysterious, complicated, truly great man.
Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal
William Henry Chafe - 2012
Chafe has written powerfully about the relationship between personality and politics. Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal represents the culmination of this approach to political history. Having written widely on civil rights and women’s history, Chafe brings the themes of all his scholarship together in this book about the Clintons’ “co-presidency,” two people committed to both sex and race equality. From the beginning, Chafe argues, the personal chemistry between the Clintons shaped definitively their political careers. She was instrumental in his triumphs as Arkansas governor and “saved” his presidential candidacy by standing with him during the Gennifer Flowers sex scandal. He responded by delegating presidential powers to her that no other First Lady had ever exercised. Often tempestuous, their relationship had as many lows as it did highs, but the trajectory of the Clintons’ political lives can only be understood through the prism of their personal relationship. Full of insights about health care, Kenneth Starr, and welfare reform, Bill and Hillary gives texture and depth to the Clintons’ lives, including the extent to which the Lewinsky scandal finally freed Hillary to become a politician in her own right and return to the consensus reformer she had been in college and law school.
Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life
James M. Cannon - 2013
Roosevelt twenty-nine years earlier had the American people known so little about a man who had stepped forward from obscurity to take the oath of office as President of the United States.” —from Chapter 4This is a comprehensive narrative account of the life of Gerald Ford written by one of his closest advisers, James Cannon. Written with unique insight and benefiting from personal interviews with President Ford in his last years, Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life is James Cannon’s final look at the simple and honest man from the Midwest.
The President's Daughter
Nan Britton - 1927
No. This is not a tawdry fable. This is fact. The President was Warren G. Harding who then died suddenly. Some say he was murdered. Her book is great. In Chapter 18 she describes how on July 30, 1917 she finally lost her virginity to the future president after a long courtship, in a New York City hotel on 30th Street overlooking Broadway. Only moments after the intercourse had been completed, the New York City Vice Squad broke down the door. Harding was forced to identify himself. When the police realized that their target, Warren G. Harding, was a United States Senator (he was not yet president), the Vice Squad apologized and beat a hasty retreat. It was not before long that Nan Britton discovered that she was pregnant. Senator Harding set her up in a house in Asbury Park, New Jersey near a casino where he sometimes played poker, and he sent her money through messengers. She was able to keep her pregnancy and the subsequent birth to her of an illegitimate child a secret from everybody, except for her actual lover who was US Senator and then President Warren G. Harding. The child, Elizabeth Ann, was born on October 22, 1919, not in a hospital but in the same house in Asbury Park NJ where Nan Britton had been staying. The resulting book, The President's Daughter, has a story all its own. Bills were introduced in the United States Congress to stop the publication of this book or to make possession of it illegal. The New York City Vice Squad raided the printing plant and confiscated all the plates. No major, reputable book publisher would touch this book. All turned it down. Finally, the book was published. Naturally, as the book featured sex romps in the White House, it became a best seller.
Crack! and Thump: With a Combat Infantry Officer in World War II
Charles Scheffel - 2007
CRACK! AND THUMP is Scheffel's chilling account of ground combat of a young company-grade officer who fought with the 9th Infantry Division in North Africa, Sicily, France, Belgium, and Germany. Scheffel vividly recalls the terror, mind-numbing fatigue, raw emotions, and horrific conditions fighting men endured to achieve victory in World War II.