At the center of this controversy stood the two most famous men in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the interventionist cause, and aviator Charles Lindbergh, who, as unofficial leader and spokesman for America’s isolationists, emerged as the president’s most formidable adversary. Their contest of wills personified the divisions within the country at large, and Lynne Olson makes masterly use of their dramatic personal stories to create a poignant and riveting narrative. While FDR, buffeted by political pressures on all sides, struggled to marshal public support for aid to Winston Churchill’s Britain, Lindbergh saw his heroic reputation besmirched—and his marriage thrown into turmoil—by allegations that he was a Nazi sympathizer.   Spanning the years 1939 to 1941, Those Angry Days vividly re-creates the rancorous internal squabbles that gripped the United States in the period leading up to Pearl Harbor. After Germany vanquished most of Europe, America found itself torn between its traditional isolationism and the urgent need to come to the aid of Britain, the only country still battling Hitler. The conflict over intervention was, as FDR noted, “a dirty fight,” rife with chicanery and intrigue, and Those Angry Days recounts every bruising detail. In Washington, a group of high-ranking military officers, including the Air Force chief of staff, worked to sabotage FDR’s pro-British policies. Roosevelt, meanwhile, authorized FBI wiretaps of Lindbergh and other opponents of intervention. At the same time, a covert British operation, approved by the president, spied on antiwar groups, dug up dirt on congressional isolationists, and planted propaganda in U.S. newspapers. Among the notable figures involved in the struggle were future U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford, Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, and authors Gore Vidal and Kurt Vonnegut.   The stakes could not have been higher. The combatants were larger than life. With the immediacy of a great novel, Those Angry Days brilliantly recalls a time fraught with danger when the future of democracy and America’s role in the world hung in the balance.  Praise for Lynne Olson’s Citizens of London  “Engaging and original, rich in anecdote and analysis, this is a terrific work of history.”—Jon Meacham   “Citizens of London is a great read about the small band of Americans and their courageous role in helping Britain through the darkest days of early World War II. I thought I knew a lot about this dangerous period, but Lynne Olson has taught me so much more.”—Tom Brokaw

    Once finally emancipated by Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he would give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War. He died a free man in northwest Washington at 75. Based on correspondence, legal documents, and journal entries rarely seen before, this amazing portrait of the times reveals the mores and attitudes toward slavery of the nineteenth century, and sheds new light on famous characters such as James Madison, who believed the white and black populations could not coexist as equals; French General Lafayette who was appalled by this idea; Dolley Madison, who ruthlessly sold Paul after her husband's death; and many other since forgotten slaves, abolitionists, and civil right activists.

    Yet as historian David B. Woolner reveals, the end of FDR’s presidency might very well surpass it in drama and consequence.Drawing on new evidence, Woolner shows how FDR used every ounce of his diminishing energy to pursue the things that mattered most to him: the establishment of the United Nations, the reinvigoration of the New Deal, the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and some quiet moments with his closest companions. We see a president shorn of the usual distractions of office, a man whose sense of duty and personal responsibility for the fate of the American people, and the world, bore heavily upon him. From his final Christmas at Hyde Park to his death on April 12, 1945, FDR strove to finish the work he had started twelve long years before.

    An engaging look at the 42 men who have served as president.

    It was these men who shaped the contours of American history by diagnosing the systemic dysfunctions created by the Articles of Confederation, manipulating the political process to force a calling of the Constitutional Convention, conspiring to set the agenda in Philadelphia, orchestrating the debate in the state ratifying conventions, and, finally, drafting the Bill of Rights to assure state compliance with the constitutional settlement.

    Now in his highly anticipated new history, Three Days in Moscow, Baier explores the dramatic endgame of America’s long struggle with the Soviet Union and President Ronald Reagan’s central role in shaping the world we live in today.On May 31, 1988, Reagan stood on Russian soil and addressed a packed audience at Moscow State University, delivering a remarkable—yet now largely forgotten—speech that capped his first visit to the Soviet capital. This fourth in a series of summits between Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, was a dramatic coda to their tireless efforts to reduce the nuclear threat. More than that, Reagan viewed it as “a grand historical moment”: an opportunity to light a path for the Soviet people—toward freedom, human rights, and a future he told them they could embrace if they chose. It was the first time an American president had given an address about human rights on Russian soil. Reagan had once called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Now, saying that depiction was from “another time,” he beckoned the Soviets to join him in a new vision of the future. The importance of Reagan’s Moscow speech was largely overlooked at the time, but the new world he spoke of was fast approaching; the following year, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union began to disintegrate, leaving the United States the sole superpower on the world stage.Today, the end of the Cold War is perhaps the defining historical moment of the past half century, and must be understood if we are to make sense of America’s current place in the world, amid the re-emergence of US-Russian tensions during Vladimir Putin’s tenure. Using Reagan’s three days in Moscow to tell the larger story of the president’s critical and often misunderstood role in orchestrating a successful, peaceful ending to the Cold War, Baier illuminates the character of one of our nation’s most venerated leaders—and reveals the unique qualities that allowed him to succeed in forming an alliance for peace with the Soviet Union, when his predecessors had fallen short.

    Almost immediately he realized his task was not only to modernize his country but to save the EU and a crumbling international order. From the decline of NATO, to Russian interference, to the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protestors, Macron's term unfolded against a backdrop of social conflict, clashing ambitions, and resurgent big-power rivalries.In The Last President of Europe, William Drozdiak tells with exclusive inside access the story of Macron's presidency and the political challenges the French leader continues to face. Macron has ridden a wild rollercoaster of success and failure: he has a unique relationship with Donald Trump, a close-up view of the decline of Angela Merkel, and is both the greatest beneficiary from, and victim of, the chaos of Brexit across the Channel. He is fighting his own populist insurrection in France at the same time as he is trying to defend a system of values that once represented the West but is now under assault from all sides. Together these challenges make Macron the most consequential French leader of modern times, and perhaps the last true champion of the European ideal.

    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.

    He entered the White House in 1981, a time when many Americans were wondering if their country's best days were behind them. But things had changed by the time he left office--the economy was thriving and the Cold War was coming to a close.The child of an alcoholic, he was an intensely private man, yet he was so charming that he routinely befriended even his enemies. Reagan was both a complex man and political figure, and his legacy strongly influences politics today.

    It is an undoubted fact that, were it not for the work of Alfred, there might never have been the possibility of an English kingdom in the sense that we now understand it. It is also true that Athelstan was the first explicitly to rule over an English kingdom in roughly its present shape and extent. What, then, was the contribution of Edward to the evolution of what his son was to inherit? As a child, he saw his father at the lowest point of his fortunes; as a boy, he grew up under the constant threat of further Danish invasion. Edward came to adulthood in the knowledge that it was his responsibility to safeguard his country. By his death, he was undoubtedly the most powerful and respected ruler, not only in England but in western Europe, and he achieved this through both martial and legislative prowess. Edward built on his father’s work but he immeasurably expanded it, and the chroniclers who wrote in the centuries which immediately followed his death remembered him as ‘greatly excelling his father in extent of power’. Edward the Elder succeeded Alfred as king of the Anglo-Saxons; he died as king of the English. And yet virtually nothing has been written about him. Until now. While biographies of Alfred and studies of the achievements of Athelstan pour from the press, Edward is forgotten. Yet he was the first ruler to leave behind him the possibility of a united England, a country in which men thought of themselves as English, speaking a language which all would have described as English, which had never existed in quite this form before. Anyone looking to fully understand and appreciate the making of medieval England must look to understand and appreciate Edward the Elder and his reign.

    Yet he proved to be a bold leader who used the malleable executive system to his advantage. In this biography of the tenth President of the United States, Edward P. Crapol challenges previous depictions of Tyler as a die-hard advocate of states' rights, limited government, and a strict interpretation of the Constitution.In pursuit of his agenda, Crapol argues, Tyler exploited executive prerogatives and manipulated constitutional requirements in ways that violated his professed allegiance to a strict interpretation of the Constitution. He set precedents that his successors in the White House invoked to create an American empire and expand presidential power.Crapol also highlights Tyler's enduring faith in America's national destiny and his belief that boundless territorial expansion would preserve the Union as a slaveholding republic. When Tyler, a Virginian, opted for secession and the Confederacy in 1861, he was stigmatized as America's traitor president for having betrayed the republic he once led. As Crapol demonstrates, Tyler's story anticipates the modern imperial presidency in all its power and grandeur, as well as its darker side.

    He examines Adams's myriad sides: the public and private man, the statesman and writer, the wise thinker and passionate advocate, the leading abolitionist and fervent federalist who believed strongly in both individual liberty and the government's role as an engine of progress and prosperity. In these ways—and in his energy, empathy, sharp intellect, and powerful gift with words both spoken and written—he was a predecessor of Lincoln and, later, FDR and Obama. Indeed, this sweeping biography makes clear how Adams's forward-thinking values, his definition of leadership, and his vision for the nation's future is as much about twenty-first century America as it is about Adams's own time.Meticulously researched and masterfully written, John Quincy Adams paints a rich portrait of this brilliant leader and his significance to the nation and our own lives.

    Based on interviews with over 40 media leaders, Schieffer provides an inside look at the changing role of media and asks whether today's citizens are more informed or just overwhelmed.

    He boarded a friend’s yacht, sailed into the calm blue waters of Long Island Sound, and--poof!--disappeared. He would not be heard from again for five days. What happened during those five days, and in the days and weeks that followed, was so incredible that, even when the truth was finally revealed, many Americans simply would not believe it.The President Is a Sick Man details an extraordinary but almost unknown chapter in American history: Grover Cleveland’s secret cancer surgery and the brazen political cover-up by a politician whose most memorable quote was “Tell the truth.” When an enterprising reporter named E. J. Edwards exposed the secret operation, Cleveland denied it. The public believed the “Honest President,” and Edwards was dismissed as “a disgrace to journalism.” The facts concerning the disappearance of Grover Cleveland that summer were so well concealed that even more than a century later a full and fair account has never been published. Until now.