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Presidents' spouses--United States--Biography, Grandchildren of presidents--United States--Biography, Presidents--United States--Family, and Presidents--United States--Biography

Curtis Roosevelt knew what it was like to live with a president. His grandfather was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From the time Curtis, with his sister, Eleanor, and recently divorced mother, Anna Roosevelt Dall, moved into his grandparents'new home—the White House—Curtis played, learned, slept, ate, and lived in one of the most famous buildings in the world with one of its most famous residents. Curtis Roosevelt offers anecdotes and revelations about the lives of the president and First Lady and the many colorful personalities in this presidential family. From Eleanor's shocking role in the remarriage of Curtis's mother to visits from naughty cousins and trips to the “Home Farm,” Upstairs at the Roosevelts'provides an intimate perspective on the dynamics of one of America's most famous families and those who visited, were friends, and sometimes even enemies.

Racially mixed people--United States--Biography, African American politicians--United States--Biography, and Presidents--United States--Biography

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • NPR • The Guardian • Marie Claire In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation's highest office.Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune's Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man's bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama's conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

Presidents--United States--Biography

Those who seek to understand the character and achievement of Abraham Lincoln must begin with a study of the man's honesty. At the base of his nature, in the tap-root and very fiber of his being, pulsed a fidelity to truth, whether of thought or of deed, peculiar to itself. Lincoln was a poor boy growing up in a remote area. His mother died when he was young. With no formal schooling available to him, the young Lincoln set out to shape his own character.

Biographers--United States and Presidents--United States--Biography--History and criticism

Who was the'real'Thomas Jefferson? If this question has an answer, it will probably not be revealed reading the many accounts of his life. For two centuries biographers have provided divergent perspectives on him as a man and conflicting appraisals of his accomplishments. Jefferson was controversial in his own time, and his propensity to polarize continued in the years after his death as biographers battled to control the commanding heights of history. To judge from their depictions, there existed many different Thomas Jeffersons.The essays in this book explore how individual biographers have shaped history—as well as how the interests and preoccupations of the times in which they wrote helped to shape their portrayals of Jefferson. In different eras biographers presented the third president variously as a proponent of individual rights or of majority rule, as a unifier or a fierce partisan, and as a champion of either American nationalism or cosmopolitanism. Conscripted to serve Whigs and Democrats, abolitionists and slaveholders, unionists and secessionists, Populists and Progressives, and seemingly every side of almost every subsequent struggle, the only constant was that Jefferson's image remained a mirror of Americans'self-conscious conceptions of their nation's virtues, values, and vices. Thomas Jefferson's Lives brings together leading scholars of Jefferson and his era, all of whom embrace the challenge to assess some of the most important and enduring accounts of Jefferson's life.Contributors:Jon Meacham, presidential historian • Barbara Oberg, Princeton University • J. Jefferson Looney, Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello • Christine Coalwell McDonald, Westchester Community College • Robert M.S. McDonald, United States Military Academy • Andrew Burstein, Louisiana State University • Jan Ellen Lewis, Rutgers University • Richard Samuelson, California State University, San Bernardino • Nancy Isenberg, Louisiana State University • Joanne B. Freeman, Yale University • Brian Steele, University of Alabama at Birmingham • Herbert Sloan, Barnard College • R. B. Bernstein, City College of New York • Francis D. Cogliano, University of Edinburgh • Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University • Gordon S. Wood, Brown University

Presidents--United States--Biography

My Brother Theodore Roosevelt is not a biography, it is not a political history of the times, although the author was most careful in her effort to record facts accurately, and carefully searched her memory before relating conversations or experiences. Robinson hopes this work will paint a clear picture of Roosevelt by one who was closest to him and one who knew his loyalty and tenderness of heart.

World War, 1939-1945--United States, World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns, Admirals--United States--Biography, Presidents--United States--Biography, and Generals--United States--Biography

Few American presidents have exercised their constitutional authority as commander in chief with more determination than Franklin D. Roosevelt. He intervened in military operations more often and to better effect than his contemporaries Churchill and Stalin, and maneuvered events so that the Grand Alliance was directed from Washington. In this expansive history, Eric Larrabee examines the extent and importance of FDR's wartime leadership through his key military leaders—Marshall, King, Arnold, MacArthur, Vandergrift, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Stilwell, and LeMay. Devoting a chapter to each man, the author studies Roosevelt's impact on their personalities, their battles (sometimes with each other), and the consequences of their decisions. He also addresses such critical subjects as Roosevelt's responsibility for the war and how well it achieved his goals. First published in 1987, this comprehensive portrait of the titans of the American military effort in World War II is available in a new paperback edition for the first time in sixteen years.

Presidents--United States--Biography

This new “Reader's Edition” of Harry Truman's memoirs removes the overload of detail and reproduced historical documents, reduces the bloated cast of characters, clarifies the often confusing balance between chronological and thematic presentation, and corrects some important problems of presentation that made the two volumes of Truman's memoirs, published in 1955 and 1956, difficult to read and enjoy. This new edition, reduced to half the length of the original text, offers a new generation of readers the thrill of hearing the unique and authentic voice of Harry S. Truman, probably the most important president of the last seventy-five years, telling the story of his life, his presidency, and some of the most important years in American history.

Presidents--United States--Biography

In this ambitious work David T. Byrne analyzes the ideas that informed Ronald Reagan's political philosophy and policies. Rather than appraising Reagan's personal and emotional life, Byrne's intellectual biography goes one step further; it establishes a rationale for the former president's motives, discussing how thinkers such as Plato and Adam Smith influenced him. Byrne points to three historical forces that shaped Reagan's political philosophy: Christian values, particularly the concept of a universal kingdom of God; America's firm belief in freedom as the greatest political value and its aversion to strong centralized government; and the appeasement era of World War II, which stimulated Reagan's aggressive and confrontational foreign policy. Byrne's account of the fortieth president augments previous work on Reagan with a new model for understanding him. Byrne shows how Reagan took conservatism and the Republican Party in a new direction, departing from the traditional conservatism of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk. His desire to spread a “Kingdom of Freedom” both at home and abroad changed America's political landscape forever and inspired a new conservatism that persists to this day.

World War, 1914-1918--Artillery operations, American, Soldiers--United States--Biography, Presidents--United States--Biography, and World War, 1914-1918--Biography

Revealing the little-known facts of Harry Truman's remarkable military performance, as a soldier and as a politician, The Soldier from Independence adds a whole new dimension to the already fascinating character of the thirty-third president of the United States. D. M. Giangreco shows how, as a field artillery battery commander in World War I, Truman was already making the hard decisions that he knew to be right, regardless of personal consequences. Truman oversaw the conclusion of the Second World War, stood up to Stalin, and met the test of North Korea's invasion of the South. He also had the fortitude to defy Gen. Douglas MacArthur, one of America's most revered wartime leaders, and ultimately fired the Far East commander, often characterized as the American Caesar. Filling in the details behind these world-changing events, this military biography supplies a heretofore missing—and critical—chapter in the story of one of the nation's most important presidents. The Soldier from Independence recounts the World War I military adventure that would mark a turning point in the life of a humble man who would go on to become commander in chief.

Women college presidents--Biography, Women college presidents--United States--Biography, and Women college presidents--Criticism and interpretation

Early in her tenure as president of Mount Holyoke College, Joanne V. Creighton faced crises as students staged protests and occupied academic buildings; the alumnae association threatened a revolt; and a distinguished professor became the subject of a major scandal. Yet Creighton weathered each storm, serving for nearly fifteen years in office and shepherding the college through a notable revitalization.In her autobiography, The Educational Odyssey of a Woman College President, Creighton situates her tenure at Mount Holyoke within a life and career that have traversed breathtaking changes in higher education and social life. Having held multiple roles in academia spanning undergraduate, professor, and president, Creighton served at small colleges and large public universities and experienced the dramatic changes facing women across the academy. From her girlhood in Wisconsin to the presidency of a storied women's college, she bears witness to the forces that have reshaped higher education for women and continues to advocate for the liberal arts and sciences.

Presidents' spouses--United States--Biography, Life skills--United States, Conduct of life, and Presidents--United States--Biography

Everything to Gain, first published in 1987, is the warm account of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's life after their years in the White House. They discuss their marriage and health issues, their work with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center, and much more.

College presidents--United States--Biography and College teachers--United States--Biography

From the Cast-Iron Shore is part personal memoir and part participant-observer's educational history. As president emeritus at Williams College in Massachusetts, Francis Oakley details its progression from a fraternity-dominated institution in the 1950s to the leading liberal arts college it is today, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. Oakley's own life frames this transformation. He talks of growing up in England, Ireland, and Canada, and his time as a soldier in the British Army, followed by his years as a student at Yale University. As an adult, Oakley's provocative writings on church authority stimulated controversy among Catholic scholars in the years after Vatican II. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Medieval Academy of America, and an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he has written extensively on medieval intellectual and religious life and on American higher education. Oakley combines this account of his life with reflections on social class, the relationship between teaching and research, the shape of American higher education, and the challenge of educational leadership in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The book is an account of the life of a scholar who has made a deep impact on his historical field, his institution, his nation, and his church, and will be of significant appeal to administrators of liberal arts colleges and universities, historians, medievalists, classicists, and British and American academics.

Presidents--United States--Biography

The work here was begun in 1894 at the suggestion of Mr. S. S. McClure and Mr. J. S. Phillips, editors of “McClure's Magazine.” Their desire was to add to our knowledge of Abraham Lincoln by collecting and preserving the reminiscences of such of his contemporaries as were then living. In undertaking the work it was determined to spare neither labor nor money and in this determination Mr. McClure and his associates have never wavered. Without the sympathy, confidence, suggestion and criticism which they have given the work it would have been impossible. The author was asked to prepare a series of articles on Lincoln covering his life up to 1858 and embodying as far as possible the unpublished material collected. These articles, which appeared in “McClure's Magazine” for 1895 and 1896, were received favorably, and it was decided to follow them by a series on the later life of Lincoln. This latter series was concluded in September, 1899, and both series, with considerable supplementary matter, are published in the present volumes. The new material collected will, we believe, add considerably to our knowledge of Lincoln's life. Documents are presented establishing clearly that his mother was not the nameless girl that she has been so generally believed. His father, Thomas Lincoln, is shown to have been something more than a shiftless “poor white,” and Lincoln's early life, if hard and crude, to have been full of honest, cheerful effort at betterment. His struggles for a livelihood and his intellectual development from the time he started out for himself until he was admitted to the bar are traced with more detail than in any other biography, and considerable new light is thrown on this period of his life. The sensational account of his running away from his own wedding, accepted generally by historians, is shown to be false. To the period of Lincoln's life from 1849, when he gave up politics, until 1858, the period of the Lincoln and Douglas Debates, the most important contribution made is the report of what is known as the “Lost Speech.” The second volume of the Life contains as an appendix 196 pages of letters, telegrams and speeches which do not appear in Lincoln's “Complete Works,” published by his private secretaries Messrs. Nicolay and Hay. The great majority of these documents have never been published at all. The source from which they have been obtained is given in each case. No attempt has been made to cover the history of Lincoln's times save as necessary in tracing the development of his mind and in illustrating his moral qualities. It is Lincoln the man, as seen by his fellows and revealed by his own acts and words, that the author has tried to picture. This has been the particular aim of the second series of articles.

Presidents--United States--Biography and Generals--United States--Biography

A much-needed concise biography of America's first president As editor of the award-winning Library of America collection of George Washington's writings and a curator of the great man's original papers, John Rhodehamel has established himself as an authority of our nation's preeminent founding father. Rhodehamel examines George Washington as a public figure, arguing that the man—who first achieved fame in his early twenties—is inextricably bound to his mythic status. Solidly grounded in Washington's papers and exemplary in its brevity, this approachable biography is a superb introduction to the leader whose name has become synonymous with America.

Presidents--Assassination attempts--United States--History, Presidents--Assassination--United States--History, Presidents--United States--Biography, and Assassins--United States--Biography

Since the birth of our nation and the election of the first president, groups of organized plotters or individuals have been determined to assassinate the chief executive. From the Founding Fathers to the Great Depression, three presidents have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and William McKinley. However, unknown to the general public, almost all presidents have been threatened, put in danger, or survived “near lethal approaches” during their terms. Plotting to Kill the President reveals the numerous, previously untold incidents when assassins, plotters, and individuals have threatened the lives of American presidents, from George Washington to Herbert Hoover. Mel Ayton has uncovered these episodes, including an attempt to assassinate President Hayes during his inauguration ceremony, an attempt to shoot Benjamin Harrison on the streets of Washington, an assassination attempt on President Roosevelt at the White House, and many other incidents that have never been reported or have been covered up. Ayton also recounts the stories of Secret Service agents and bodyguards from each administration who put their lives in danger to protect the commander in chief. Plotting to Kill the President demonstrates the unsettling truth that even while the nation sleeps, those who would kill the president are often hard at work devising new schemes.

Presidents--United States--Biography

First published in 1959, The Autobiography of James Monroe collects the compelling fragments of Monroe's unfinished autobiography, written after his retirement from the presidency. The memoirs trace his boyhood, education, and experiences during his long service as a public servant before becoming president. Monroe vividly recalls his military experience in the Revolution, his law studiesat the College of William and Mary, and his service as aide to Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. From the early days of his political career, Monroe writes with passion about his opposition to slavery and his support for the Western farmer. He discusses his controversial first mission to France as a young and inexperienced minister to a country in the throes of a revolution, as well assubsequent missions in which he served as the key negotiator with France forthe purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Originally edited by Stuart Gerry Brown, this new edition includes an introduction by historian and documentary editor William Ferraro. Ferraro considers the lasting influence of Brown's edition on Monroe scholarship and surveys the most recent research, detailing the ways this founding father's legacy continues to unfold.

World War, 1914-1918--Peace, Presidents--United States--Biography, Press and politics--United States--History--20th century, and Press--United States--Influence

James D. Startt previously explored Woodrow Wilson's relationship with the press during his rise to political prominence. Now, Startt returns to continue the story, picking up with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and tracing history through the Senate's ultimate rejection in 1920 of the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.Woodrow Wilson, the Great War, and the Fourth Estate delves deeply into the president's evolving relations with the press and its influence on and importance to the events of the time. Startt navigates the complicated relationship that existed between one of the country's most controversial leaders and its increasingly ruthless corps of journalists. The portrait of Wilson that emerges here is one of complexity—a skilled politician whose private nature and notorious grit often tarnished his rapport with the press, and an influential leader whose passionate vision just as often inspired journalists to his cause.

Presidents--United States--Biography and Legislators--United States--Biography

The definitive account of Richard Nixon's congressional career, back in print with a new preface Unsurpassed in the fifteen years since its original publication, Irwin F. Gellman's exhaustively researched work is the definitive account of Richard Nixon's rise from political unknown to the verge of achieving the vice-presidency. To document Nixon's congressional career, Gellman combed the files of Nixon's 1946, 1948, and 1950 campaigns, papers from the executive sessions of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and every document dated through 1952 at the Richard Nixon Library. This singular volume corrects many earlier written accounts. For example, there was no secret funding of Nixon's senate campaign in 1950, and Nixon won universal praise for his evenhandedness as a member of HUAC. The first book of a projected five-volume examination of this complex man's entire career, this work stands as the definitive political portrait of Nixon as a fast-rising young political star.