January 21, 2012 – 11:22 am
Millard Fillmore, by Paul Finkelman
So I told you guys last month that Zachary Taylor was actually pretty sweet for how unknown he is and the length of his presidency (only about 18 months). The biography that I read talked about how had he lived, the civil war may had been totally avoided. The weird part? [...]
December 28, 2011 – 5:35 pm
Zachary Taylor, by John S. D. Eisenhower
Is it bad that my general opinion of Zachary Taylor came from a little, brief mention on 30 Rock? Yup. I’m a total idiot.
Most of the other presidents, even if I didn’t know much about them going into this challenge, had begun to take shape for me before [...]
November 28, 2011 – 9:59 am
Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, by Walter R. Borneman
Unlike several of the presidents in this little “between Jackson and Lincoln” clump, I had actually heard of Polk and knew a teeny bit about him. I knew that he was in some way involved in the Mexican American war (although I [...]
October 26, 2011 – 8:52 am
John Tyler, by Gary May
John Tyler is one of those forgotten presidents. He was the first vice president to take over after the death of a president and to be perfectly honest, he didn’t really do much in office. He got himself really hooked on Texas and slavery and tried to get stuff done in [...]
September 26, 2011 – 6:53 am
Goodbye, Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His One Month Presidency, by Keith W. Norris
If people even remember who William Henry Harrison is it’s only because everyone learned in school that he was stupid enough to give his inauguration speech in the rain with no coat and then died one month later. He [...]
August 25, 2011 – 7:56 am
Martin Van Buren, by Ted Widmer
In the intro to this book, the author says that most Americans know one thing about Martin Van Buren: that he was the president and that he had amazing side burns…. and for me that just about sums it up. I knew a teeny bit from the Andrew Jackson bio [...]
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham
Ok, let me just say right off that I kind of love Andrew Jackson. I knew very little about him before starting this book, but as I read it I found myself bringing him up in conversation and going on and on. It’s like a [...]
So excited that another super-nerd has joined the Presidential Challenge!
Jennie from Life is Short, Read Fast hopped on board this month and was patriotic enough to post her first review on July 4th. Wonderful, right!?
Go check out her review of a giant, 800 page bio of our first president. I’m way, way impressed!
Welcome [...]
John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life, by Paul C. Nagel
Let me just start by saying that this was not one of the biographies that I was really excited about. After reading John Adams, I kind of thought that I had a pretty basic idea of JQA’s life and thought this would be [...]
The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, by Harlow Giles Unger
Alright, there are a lot of little things that I want to talk about that have absolutely no relation to one another so bulleted list it is!
Harlow Giles Unger is maybe the best historian name I’ve ever heard of. And [...]