recommended on APUS history listserv


doesn't look like it will be a good selection for AP US or LSN or AP Gov

disappointing
writing style is choppy,
tidbits of historical information scattered about that don't seem to support his argument that a particular president was courageous ( )

This is a great book if you enjoy presidential history but don't want to devote several hundred pages at a time to one president. Beschloss analyzes nine different presidents as they struggle with a single, unpopular policy or decision. Each issue is described in great detail and is very well documented. Beshloss handles each issue/decision in a non-partisan manner. ( )

For me to like any political book is amazing in itself. ( )

My review is for the abridged audiobook version read by the author. The author presents engaging profiles of nine American Presidents who persevered despite stiff opposition from either domestic or foreign adversaries (or both). He makes a special effort to show how the later executives were inspired or influenced by the example of earlier ones, giving the book a sense of unity despite the broad range of historical periods covered. I find his accounts to be mostly even-handed on the political spectrum, though "objective" isn't quite the word I would use to characterize them.

Such strong characters are easy to tell apart, and thinking about what might have happened if Adams served during the time of Lincoln or if one swapped Theodore and Franklin Roosevelts would make interesting speculations by enthusiasts of political history such as the ones who would most enjoy this book. Such readers would naturally be inclined to make comparisons between this book and other works covering the lives of those individuals who shaped history, not least of which the one John F. Kennedy wrote, Profiles in Courage. You can tell that Beschloss is aware of that famous work because he mentions it explicitly in the Kennedy section.

Drawing from the original documents and the accounts of eyewitnesses, he further fleshes out the inner workings of the Presidency by describing the influences of Cabinet members, financiers, First Ladies, and even celebrities. I would like to leaf through the hardcopy version of this book because of the way I suspect much of that might have had to be cut for this abridgment, though the one cameo appearance by Richard Nixon as ex-president does not go missing, fortunately. And as for the concluding section on how Ronald Reagan brought about an end to the Cold War, it is clear to me how much of a debt that man owes to his collaborator/adversary Mikhail Gorbachev for cementing his place in history. ( )

I heard Beschloss speak recently at a local college, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
He sounded just like his book: anecdotal, marginally interesting, uninspired.
If you're a serious student of history, you don't need this book on your shelf. For public school students, it could be an appealing way to start learning about presidential history.
Read more on my blog: http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/ ( )