Eisenhower, showing Ike’s enormous influence on modern America, the Cold War, and on the presidency itself.In a 2017 survey, presidential historians ranked Dwight D. Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, behind the perennial top four: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Teddy Roosevelt. Historian William Hitchcock shows that this high ranking is justified. Eisenhower’s accomplishments were enormous, and loom ever larger from the vantage point of our own tumultuous times. A former general, Ike kept the peace: he ended the Korean War, avoided a war in Vietnam, adroitly managed a potential confrontation with China, and soothed relations with the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death. He guided the Republican Party to embrace central aspects of the New Deal like Social Security. He thwarted the demagoguery of McCarthy and he advanced the agenda of civil rights for African Americans. As part of his strategy to wage, and win, the Cold War, Eisenhower expanded American military power, built a fearsome nuclear arsenal and launched the space race. In his famous Farewell Address, he acknowledged that Americans needed such weapons in order to keep global peace—but he also admonished his citizens to remain alert to the potentially harmful influence of the “military-industrial complex.” From 1953 to 1961 no one dominated the world stage as did President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Age of Eisenhower is the definitive account of this presidency, drawing extensively on declassified material from the Eisenhower Library, the CIA and Defense Department, and troves of unpublished documents. In his masterful account, Hitchcock shows how Ike shaped modern America, and he astutely assesses Eisenhower’s close confidants, from Attorney General Brownell to Secretary of State Dulles. The result is an eye-opening reevaluation that explains why this “do-nothing” president is rightly regarded as one of the best leaders our country has ever had.

    "Douglas Brinkley brings to this magnificent story of Theodore Roosevelt's crusade on behalf of America's national parks the same qualities that made TR so fascinating a figure—an astonishing range of knowledge, a superb narrative skill, a wonderfully vivid writing style and an inexhaustible energy." —Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of RivalsA vast, inspiring, and enormously entertaining book.” — New York Times Book ReviewFrom New York Times bestselling historian Douglas Brinkley comes a sweeping historical narrative and eye-opening look at the pioneering environmental policies of President Theodore Roosevelt, avid bird-watcher, naturalist, and the founding father of America’s conservation movement—now approaching its 100th anniversary.

    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.

    Based on scores of interviews and years of research, Steven F. Hayward takes us on an engrossing journey through the most politically divisive years the United States has had to endure since the decade before the Civil War. Overseas, we were embroiled in a war we couldn't win; at home our streets had become battlefields; and in Washington, the old liberal order was collapsing under the weight of a long string of failed policies. "It seemed that an era of American optimism and progress had come to a close," Hayward writes. "The concatenation of Vietnam, Watergate, the recurrent energy crisis, the swooning economy, the increasingly disorderly world scene, and the failed presidencies associated with these events robbed Americans of their native optimism for the future."Meanwhile, from out of the West arose a new conservative movement led by Ronald Reagan, a one-time Hollywood actor whose speech in 1964 in support of the doomed candidacy of Barry Goldwater not only electrified a national television audience but also created a political star who would change the course of history.With meticulous detail, Hayward captures an America at war with itself--and an era whose reverberations we feel to this very day. He brings new insight into the profound failure of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the oddly liberal nature of Richard Nixon's administration, the significance of Reagan's years as California's governor, and the sudden-death drama of his near defeat of Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican primary, the listlessness of Jimmy Carter's leadership, and the political earthquake that was Reagan's victorious presidential campaign in 1980.Provocative, authoritative, and majestic in scope, "The Age of Reagan" is an unforgettable account of the rebirth and triumph of the American spirit.

    Having interviewed scores of Kennedy intimates, including many who have never spoken before, and drawing on letters and personal papers made available for the first time, Smith paints a richly detailed picture of the personal relationships behind the high purpose and political drama of the twentieth century's most storied presidency.At the dawn of the 1960s, a forty-three-year-old president and his thirty-one-year-old first lady – the youngest couple ever to occupy the White House – captivated the world with their easy elegance and their cool conviction that anything was possible. Jack and Jackie Kennedy gathered around them an intensely loyal and brilliant coterie of intellectuals, journalists, diplomats, international jet-setters and artists. Perhaps as never before, Washington was sharply divided between the “ins” and the “outs.”In his public life, JFK created a New Frontier, stared down the Soviets, and devoted himself to his wife and children. As first lady, Jackie mesmerized foreign leaders and the American people with her style and sophistication, creating a White House renowned for its beauty and culture. Smith brilliantly recreates the glamorous pageant of the Kennedy years, as well as the daily texture of the Kennedy's’ marriage, friendships, political associations, and, in Jack’s case, multiple love affairs. Smith’s striking revelations include new information about what drew Jack to his numerous mistresses – and what effects the relationships ultimately had on the women; about the rivalries and resentments among Kennedy’s advisers; and about the poignant days before and after Kennedy’s assassination.Smith has fashioned a vivid and nuanced portrait not only of two extraordinary individuals but of a new age that sprang to life around them.

    Living on the farm with the former president and his wife, Mamie, were his son, daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren, the oldest of whom, David, was just entering his teens. In this engaging and fascinating memoir, David Eisenhower—whose previous book about his grandfather, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—provides a uniquely intimate account of the final years of the former president and general, one of the giants of the twentieth century. In Going Home to Glory, Dwight Eisenhower emerges as both a beloved and forbidding figure. He was eager to advise, instruct, and assist his young grandson, but as a general of the army and president, he held to the highest imaginable standards. At the same time, Eisenhower was trying to define a new political role for himself. Ostensibly the leader of the Republican party, he was prepared to counsel his successor, John F. Kennedy, who sought instead to break with Eisenhower’s policies. (In contrast, Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, would eagerly seek Eisenhower’s advice.) As the tumultuous 1960s dawned, with assassinations, riots, and the deeply divisive war in Vietnam, plus a Republican nominee for president in 1964 whom Eisenhower considered unqualified, the former president tried to chart the correct course for himself, his party, and the country. Meanwhile, the past continued to pull on him as he wrote his memoirs, and publishers and broadcasters asked him to reminisce about his wartime experiences. When his grandfather took him on a post-presidential tour of Europe, David saw firsthand the esteem with which monarchs, prime ministers, and the people of Europe held the wartime hero. Then as later, David was under the watchful eye of a grandfather who had little understanding of or patience with the emerging rock ’n’ roll generation. But even as David went off to boarding school and college, grandfather and grandson remained close, visiting and corresponding frequently. David and Julie Nixon’s romance brought the two families together, and Eisenhower strongly endorsed his former vice-president’s successful run for the presidency in 1968. With a grandson’s love and devotion but with a historian’s candor and insight, David Eisenhower has written a remarkable book about the final years of a great American whose stature continues to grow.

    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.

    Hayes? Was he a great or inconsequential president? How did his early life and career shape his later years? How did his triumphs and failures alter our history? And why should we care? Ari Hoogenboom's masterful life of Hayes definitively answers those questions and shows why our nineteenth president deserves far greater recognition than he's received in the past.The first biography of Hayes in nearly fifty years, Hoogenboom's book recreates the rapidly changing world of Victorian America as experienced by one of its most reflective and perceptive figures. The Hayes that emerges is a much more progressive and far-sighted leader than previously suggested. He was, Hoogenboom argues, neither a Southern sympathizer nor an exemplar of the "Greedy Gilded Age." Rather, he was a devout, pragmatic champion of equal rights.Hayes's colorful life was rooted in his frontier experiences in Ohio and galvanized on Civil War battlefields, where he survived five wounds and was ultimately promoted to major general. No other president was under fire on the front lines as much as Hayes. Hayes's image as president (1877-1881), however, has not been quite so shining. He has been blamed for Reconstruction's failure and damned for an apparent bargain that guaranteed his election in exchange for withdrawing military support of Republican governments in the South. He has also been criticized for championing the gold standard, for breaking the Great Strike of 1877, for inconsistent support of civil-service reform, and for being an ineffectual politician.Hoogenboom contends that these evaluations are largely false. Previous scholars, he says, have failed to appreciate Hayes's limited options and have misrepresented his actions in their depictions of an overly cautious, nonvisionary president. In fact, he was strikingly modern in his efforts to enlarge the power of the office, which he used as his own bully pulpit to rouse public support for his goals. Chief among these goals, Hoogenboom shows, was equality for all Americans. Throughout his presidency and long afterwards, Hayes worked steadfastly for reforms that would encourage economic opportunity, distribute wealth more equitably, diminish the conflict between capital and labor, and ultimately enable African-Americans to achieve political equality. Although he fell far short of his ideals, his unwavering commitment deserves our attention and respect.

    More than a few Americans feared that the world was right. In Washington’s Circle, we see how Washington and his trusted advisers, close friends, and devoted family defied the doomsayers to lay the foundation for an enduring constitutional republic. This is a fresh look at an aloof man whose service in the Revolutionary War had already earned him the acclaim of fellow citizens. Washington was easy to revere, if difficult to know.   David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler reveal Washington’s character through his relationship with his inner circle, showing how this unlikely group created the office of the presidency. Here is a story of cooperation, confrontation, triumph, and disappointment, as the president, Congress, and the courts sorted out the limits of executive power, quarreled over funding the government, coped with domestic strife, and faced a world at war while trying to keep their country at peace.   Even more, it is a story of remarkable people striving for extraordinary achievements. Many of these characters are familiar as historic icons, but in these pages they act and speak as living individuals: the often irked and frequently irksome John Adams, in the vice presidency; the mercurial Alexander Hamilton, leading the Treasury Department; the brilliant, deceptively cunning Thomas Jefferson, as secretary of state; James Madison, who was Washington’s advocate—and his eyes and ears—in Congress; and Washington’s old friend and former brother-in-arms Henry Knox, at the administration’s beleaguered War Department. Their stories mingle with those of Edmund Randolph, John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, and the others who stood with a self-educated Virginia farmer to forge the presidency into an institution protective of its privileges but respectful of congressional prerogatives.   Written with energy, wit, and an eye for vivid detail, Washington’s Circle is the fascinating account of the people who met the most formidable challenges of the government’s earliest hours with pluck, ability, and enviable resourcefulness. When the world said they would fail, they rolled up their sleeves. This is their story.Advance praise for Washington’s Circle  “Traditional accounts portray George Washington as a solitary actor in the drama of American nationhood, as chilly and featureless as the marble shaft that dominates his namesake capitol. In fact, he was the intensely human lead in one of history’s most colorful, and contentious, ensembles. David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler bring the whole cast to unforgettable life in this character study–cum–group portrait–cum–old-fashioned page-turner. Readers are in for a treat!”—Richard Norton Smith, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller   “David and Jeanne Heidler do a superb job of illuminating the remarkable group of talented individuals who undertook an equally remarkable collaboration to found the United States.”—Edward G. Lengel, author of General George Washington: A Military Life and director, The Papers of George Washington, University of Virginia

    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.

    But Carter's time as president is a compelling and underexplored story, marked by accomplishment and adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, the first full presidential biography of Jimmy Carter, Kai Bird approaches Carter's presidency with an expert hand, unfolding the story of Carter's four years with few allies inside Washington and a great many critics in the media.As president, Carter was not merely an outsider, but indeed an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the old confederacy, and though he held strongly to the separation of church and state, his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. As Bird shows, this background manifested itself in an unusual complex of arrogance, humility, and candor that neither Washington nor America was prepared to embrace. Forty years before today's broad public reckoning with the vast gulf between America's creed and its actions, Carter looked out over a nation torn by race, crippled by stagflation, and demoralized by both Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters ultimately recoiled. The cost of Carter's unshakeable belief in doing the right thing would be a second term--and the ascendance of Reagan.The issues that Carter contended with in the late 1970s are still hotly debated today: national health care, growing inequality, energy independence, racism, immigration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forty years after voters turned him out of the White House, Carter appears remarkably prescient on the major issues facing the country in the twenty-first century, even if in his own time he was a prophet scorned.Drawing on interviews with members of Carter's administration as well as recently unclassified documents from his presidential library, Bird delivers a profoundly thorough, clear-eyed evaluation of a president whose legacy has been debated, dismissed, and misunderstood The Outlier is this generation's definitive account of an enigmatic presidency--as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness.

    Now she brings her extraordinary gifts to one of the most important subjects today-the relationship between the United States and China-and one of the most significant moments in modern history. In February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to visit China, and Mao Tse-tung, the enigmatic Communist dictator, met for an hour in Beijing. Their meeting changed the course of history and ultimately laid the groundwork for the complex relationship between China and the United States that we see today. That monumental meeting in 1972-during what Nixon called "the week that changed the world"-could have been brought about only by powerful leaders: Nixon himself, a great strategist and a flawed human being, and Mao, willful and ruthless. They were assisted by two brilliant and complex statesmen, Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai. Surrounding them were fascinating people with unusual roles to play, including the enormously disciplined and unhappy Pat Nixon and a small-time Shanghai actress turned monstrous empress, Jiang Qing. And behind all of them lay the complex history of two countries, two great and equally confident civilizations: China, ancient and contemptuous yet fearful of barbarians beyond the Middle Kingdom, and the United States, forward-looking and confident, seeing itself as the beacon for the world. Nixon thought China could help him get out of Vietnam. Mao needed American technology and expertise to repair the damage of the Cultural Revolution. Both men wanted an ally against an aggressive Soviet Union. Did they get what they wanted? Did Mao betray his own revolutionary ideals? How did the people of China react to this apparent change in attitude toward the imperialist Americans? Did Nixon make a mistake in coming to China as a supplicant? And what has been the impact of the visit on the United States ever since? Weaving together fascinating anecdotes and insights, an understanding of Chinese and American history, and the momentous events of an extraordinary time, this brilliantly written book looks at one of the transformative moments of the twentieth century and casts new light on a key relationship for the world of the twenty-first century. Margaret MacMillan is the author of "Women of the Raj" and "Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World," which won the Duff Cooper Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, a Silver Medal for the Arthur Ross Book Award of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction. It was selected by the editors of "The New York Times" as one of the best books of 2002. Currently the provost of Trinity College and a professor of history at the University of Toronto, MacMillan takes up the position of warden of St. Antony's College, Oxford, in July 2007. She is an officer of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a senior fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto.

    Also in the book, Haldeman explained Nixon's statement in the Watergate tapes that Watergate could "open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing". Haldeman said that "Bay of Pigs" was a reference to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

    With a novelist's skill and meticulous scholarship, Fawn M. Brodie shows Jefferson as he wrestled with issues of revolution, religion, power, race, and love-ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political writing and his decision making. The portrait that results adds a whole new depth to those of the past.

    Reeves