"To the Best of My Ability": The American Presidents

Front Cover
James M. McPherson, David Rubel
Dorling Kindersley Pub., 2000 - Biography & Autobiography - 480 pages
EVERY GENERATION OF historians reviews and revises the work of its predecessors. With this book, the best historical writers of today's generation undertake such a task. Displaying wit and narrative flair, their elegant essays offer a fresh perspective on that most fascinating group of Americans: the American presidents.

Who better to write a new assessment of the presidents than the most respected (and best-selling) historians of our time? In To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents, members of the prestigious Society of American Historians deliver engaging, thoughtful analyses of the forty-one men who have led this country -- some, of course, more successfully than others.

In this copiously 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.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION
7
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
8
MILLARD FILLMORE
96
Copyright

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