To the Best of My Ability

by McPherson, James M.; Taylor, Theodore

• ISBN13: 9780756607777
• ISBN10: 0756607779
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-12-27
• Publisher: DK Publishing, Inc.

Summary

In To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents, members of the Society of American Historians deliver analyses of the forty-one men who have led this country - some, of course, more successfully than others.
In this illustrated volume, edited by Pulitzer Prize-winner James M. McPherson, you will learn from Gordon S. Wood how George Washington, an extraordinary man, made it possible for ordinary men to govern; from Allen Weinstein how Theodore Roosevelt tested and extended the limits of the presidency; from Tom Wicker how Richard Nixon's hatreds and insecurities gripped him ever more tightly as he achieved his long-sought goal of power; and from Evan Thomas how much Bill Clinton cares about his place in the new presidential pecking order.

Author Biography

James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1962. He is the author of a dozen books, mostly on the era of the American Civil War. His Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1989, and his For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War won the Lincoln Prize in 1998

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 7
The Presidents	p. 11
George Washington	p. 12
John Adams	p. 22
Thomas Jefferson	p. 28
James Madison	p. 36
James Monroe	p. 44
John Quincy Adams	p. 50
Andrew Jackson	p. 56
Martin Van Buren	p. 66
William Henry Harrison	p. 72
John Tyler	p. 78
James K. Polk	p. 84
Zachary Taylor	p. 92
Millard Fillmore	p. 98
Franklin Pierce	p. 104
James Buchanan	p. 110
Abraham Lincoln	p. 118
Andrew Johnson	p. 126
Ulysses S. Grant	p. 132
Rutherford B. Hayes	p. 140
James A. Garfield	p. 146
Chester A. Arthur	p. 154
Grover Cleveland	p. 160
Benjamin Harrison	p. 168
William McKinley	p. 174
Theodore Roosevelt	p. 180
William Howard Taft	p. 188
Woodrow Wilson	p. 196
Warren G. Harding	p. 206
Calvin Coolidge	p. 212
Herbert Hoover	p. 218
Franklin D. Roosevelt	p. 224
Harry S. Truman	p. 234
Dwight D. Eisenhower	p. 242
John F. Kennedy	p. 250
Lyndon B. Johnson	p. 258
Richard M. Nixon	p. 266
Gerald R. Ford	p. 274
Jimmy Carter	p. 282
Ronald Reagan	p. 288
George Bush	p. 296
Bill Clinton	p. 302
The Campaigns and Inaugural Addresses	p. 309
About the Contributors	p. 456
Index	p. 459
Photo Credits	p. 479
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