I'm looking to compile a list of the best POTUS biographies. If possible, I would like to read one on each of our Presidents. I usually get some great recommendations from the people posting on this board. Any suggestions? I would really appreciate any help.

Freeman for Washington
Morris or Brands for TR
Donald for Lincoln
Catton for Grant at war; McFeely for his whole life
Remini for Andrew Jackson (some say Brands book is good, I haven't read it though)
McCullough for Truman and John Adams
Malone for TJ
Borneman for Polk
Goodwin for LBJ
Ambrose for Eisenhower
Oliver Stone for W

Just kidding on the last one.

Hard to beat Morris' Theodore Rex for TR, as well as the McCullough books on Truman and Adams. I haven't done much presidential reading outside of those, although, in the sixth grade, I drew Andrew Johnson's name out of a hat and had to write a report on him ... Of all the presidents to choose, that's who I end up with.

Phoenix:

Better than Millard Fillmore or Calvin Coolidge, in fact he'd be in my top 10 if I could choose who to write on.

Morris actually did 2 on TR. One was "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" on his early life up to the presidency and the other was Theodore Rex. The first was really good, because TR's life story is pretty amazing.

No Carl Sandburg Lincoln one? I guess literary biographies have lost interest as opposed to the more analytical ones. Still better than the "how many children did he father out of wedlock" style ones.

Sandburg's bio was once the standard but it is so full of made up stuff and just wrong stuff that the reputable Lincoln historians laugh or cringe at it now.

The Willard Sterne Randall Thomas Jefferson bio is pretty good.

Benjamin Franklin has the best autobiography. (Yes, I know he's not a president, but he is more important than about 15 or more presidents)

I've read some decent Washington ones, but never one I really thought was dynamite.

Walter Borneman's "Polk" about James K. Polk is on my list..... I've ready several of his other books.....

Also, HW Brands just finished a biography about FDR that looks good....... he also did one on Andrew Jackson... I have read his TR about Teddy Roosevelt that was quite good....

David McCulloch is the best of the group....... John Adams is one of the best books I've ever read....... I have Truman, but have not read it yet.......

Thanks for the suggestions... I'm going to put the list here and edit when more are recommended.

(1) George Washington: A Biography (Volumes 1-5) – Douglas Southall Freeman
(2) John Adams – David McCullough
(3) Jefferson and His Time (6 Volumes) and Jefferson's Writings (2 Volumes) – Dumas Malone/American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson - Joseph J. Ellis
(7) The Life of Andrew Jackson – Robert V. Remini
(11) Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America – Walter R. Borneman
(12) Zachary Taylor: The 12th President, 1849-1850 - John S.D. Eisenhower and Arthur M. Schlesinger
(16) Lincoln – David Herbert Donald
(18) Grant Trilogy (Grant Moves South, Grant Takes Command, Captain Sam Grant) - Bruce Catton/Grant: A Biography – William S. McFeely
(26) The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt/Theodore Rex – Edmund Morris/TR: The Last Romantic - H.W. Brands
(32) Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal - William E. Leuchtenberg/That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt - Robert H. Jackson, William E. Leuchtenberg, and John Q. Barrett/The Age of Roosevelt (Volumes 1-3) - Arthur M. Schlesinger/The Roosevelt Myth - John T. Flynn and Ralph Raico/Traitor to His Class: The Priviledged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - H.W. Brands
(33) Truman – David McCullough
(34) Eisenhower: Soldier and President – Stephen E. Ambrose
(36) Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream – Doris Kearns Goodwin/The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson - Eric F. Goldman/A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power - J. Evetts Haley/The Politician: The Life & Times of Lyndon Johnson - Ronnie Dugger/LBJ: The White House Years - Harry Joseph Middleton/The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Volumes 1-3) - Robert Caro/Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President - Robert Dallek
(42) First In His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton - David Maraniss/The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House - John F. Harris

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin/The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin - H.W. Brands

[This message has been edited by wreckingcrewd (edited 11/11/2008 9:47a).]

BQ -- I should have mentioned that, the more I read about Johnson, the more interested I became. In fact, my teacher said much the same as you -- if she had her choice, she would have chosen AJ. Writing that paper made me realize that the word "impeachment" has nothing to do with the fuzzy product of a certain fruit tree ...

Keep adding to the list -- reading a bio about each president is an excellent idea. I may have to hit Half Price on the way home tonight.

for your TR, you need (I think) to read "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" first. It starts with his childhood and works forward. I've stalled with it, due to some other readings, but its very good so far. I have Theodore Rex, but I have a feeling that's a year or more off before I get to start it.

David Maraniss did a masterful job detailing Bill Clinton's life.

Actually for TJ I was recommending Malone's five volume bio, not sure about the other book you posted but assume it is a more abridged version. Freeman's bio of Washington is 7 volumes but there is a one volume abridged edition of that too.

Why would anyone want to read Bill Clinton's life? That's like reading a biography of Paris Hilton.

Barf. I want to read biographies that educate me on history, provide rational insight into political issues and or inspire me, like the TR book I mentioned above or Frederick Douglass' autobiography.

Who wants to read about a guy who couldn't keep his pants up and whose sole enduring reform (Welfare Reform...which may not be so enduring after all now) is something he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to sign?

I like "American Sphinx" on Jefferson. It was less of an autobiography and more of a study on our perception of Jefferson.

Brand's books are well written. I especially like First American.

aalan, I said MARANISS wrote an excellent bio of clinton. Nothing in that statement says "read" it, just that MARANISS is a good bio writer.


hth.

Got it.

Morris wrote a very good bio of TR, but a very abysmal bio of Reagan, so some writers can be both good and bad too.

Marannis wrote his book on Clinton well before he left office; in reviewing books about his administration the one I keep seeing referred to as superior is the one by John Harris called The Survivor. It is good on how Clinton maneuvered and how he tried to work around obstacles.

It is interesting that nobody mentioned biographies of FDR. Whether you like him or not, he was a significant president and an extraordinarilly skilled politician. He was like Reagan in that none of the people around him ever got a good grip on what he was really thinking about political moves. Like Reagan he was extremely flexible.

Some well written books on him are William Leuchtenberg's and the series by Arthur Schlesinger Jr, who worshipped him. For a frontal assault, I still like John T. Flynn's book, which will be of some amusement to those of conservative bents.

In addition to the biography, Leuchtenberg also wrote a political study of the pre war period which was titled FDR and the coming of the new deal or something like that.

LBJ has attracted a lot of very good biographers starting with Eric Goldman's The Tragedy of Lyndon JOhnson (he didn't pay enough attention to what Goldman was telling him according to Goldman).

J.Evetts Haley, an extreme conservative who was also a very fine historian, wrote an incredibly ferocious campaign bio as a run up to the '64 race called A Texan Looks at Lyndon, which is factually correct in almost every detail.

Ronnie Dugger was a Texas liberal who disliked him but wrote an interesting book on him.

Harry Middleton worked for him and probably has written the best evaluations of him as a nuts and bolts executive and legislative politician--how he worked and why. His LBJ: The Presidential Years is superb and an earlier book on him as a practitioner is also good.

Huisache:

Chick mentioned Brands new book on FDR called Traitor to his Class, which is getting good reviews.

I might add a good Zachry Taylor bio was recently written by John Eisenhower.

You can't really talk about quality Presidential biographies without mentioning the LBJ series by Robert Caro. I haven't read his latest one, but the first 2 were so good, they were cited heavily in virtually all LBJ bios. Its probably a good idea to read all of Caro, Dallek, and a few other ones so you get a good perspective of viewpoints. Caro doesn't think much of the guy while the rest, seemingly, worship him.

Caro's writing is hard to put down.

Caro's best writing is by his wife, who does not get a credit. The best writing in all of those books, as an example, is in the first book, where they talk about what life was like in the hill country until Johnson got rural electrification for the area and the lights came on. The whole chapter was researched and written by Caro's wife.

My reservation about Caro is this: he hates Johnson because of Viet Nam; I don't mean he dislikes him, he hates him. Or has in his books so far; once he gets into the nuts and bolts of how Nam happened he may change his mind a bit but we will have to wait and see.

As a result of his hatred, he rarely gave Johnson the benefit of the doubt in the early books. He goes so far as painting Coke Stevenson as an exemplar Jeffersonian liberal, which is a stretch that busts the elastic.

He also misjudges the evidence on the Box 13 episode. I have spent a lot of time working and even living for a while in Jim Wells and Duval County. Johnson did not fix the election, Parr did and it had nothing to do with his love of Johnson but rather with his desire to pay Stevenson back for appointing one of his enemies as District Attorney in Laredo. Parr felt Stevenson owed him for his previous support and had to pay him back for betraying him.

Caro is blinded by his hatred and uses an old thug in a trailer park as his source for the idea that Johnson or Connally was down in Parr's domain arranging the fix just after the election and before Box 13 results came in. When it came to light that Johnson could not possibly have been there at the time because it was well documented that he was elsewhere, Caro says it was Connally and the thug just mistook the two, all anglos looking alike to him.

This is BS. Johnson's ugly mug was on posters on every utility pole in south Texas and he looked nothing like Connally, who was so good looking that Hollywood wanted to screen test him. And the thug had worked for and around anglos, who were not near the minority in that area then that we are now.

Caro's hatred blinded him.

Brands' book is getting excellent reviews and my guess is that it is the best of the recent FDR books.

Bump, since I want to make a long term project out of reading bios of as many Presidents as I can.

>>Caro is blinded by his hatred<<

I hear this from all LBJ apologists. Goodwin and Dallek would bow in front of the guy if he were still alive. That's one reason why, on very controversial figures, a multitude of sources is beneficial.

I would use caution reading Ambrose's book on Eisenhower. It has come out recently that Ambrose did not interview Ike as much as he said and spent very little time with him. Some of the stuff in the book, and I cannot give examples off the top of my head, is pure fiction.

I know we still recommend it but when we do it is usually with the caveat to read with caution. It is all we can do until something better comes along.

A good autobiography for Ike is "At Ease" It is a quick and enjoyable read. It really gives insight into the way Ike thought and his sense of humor.

I am not an apologist for LBJ, whom I heartily disliked. He was a hugely flawed man but a spectacularly gifted legislative manipulator.

I try to balance my dislike for him with a fair reading of the evidence.

Caro hates him so badly that he finds it impossible to do so. His book on the 1948 election is hugely flawed as a result. Also, he does not have a very good feel for Texas or its regions or its politics in the period of 1930-1960.

Texas then, even more than now, was a porridge of regions with differing styles, elites, religious influences (which are virtually non existant in Caro or any other histories written by outsiders) and ethnicities.

>> His book on the 1948 election is hugely flawed as a result.<<

This, and the other assertions you made, is all rhetoric without sources. I read the first two Caro bios and skimmed the third. He presents a fair picture and I strongly disagree that there is evidence of hatred in there. Give me some examples, please.

I've enjoyed American Sphinx and Brand's biography on Franklin.

quote:

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Goodwin and Dallek would bow in front of the guy if he were still alive

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Aggie Lawyer 91:

Have your read Goodwin's book? She hardly bows in front of him in it and presents a troubled and unsure of himself man especially when faced with the hard decisions. Granted she worked for him and may have some bias due to having skin in the game but she portrays a very human and flawed LBJ that is different from the strong arming Senate leader he get sterotyped as.

I don't think you disputed what I said. Read this and tell me I'm wrong:

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/goo0int-1

I have criticisms of my wife (and she of me). Simple criticisms don't tell how one feels about another.

To answer your question, I skimmed her book back in 1991 when I was doing a reading study on LBJ for upper level history credit. I didn't consider the book serious scholarship. I found about 14 or 15 LBJ books, of which I narrowed down to 7 or 8.

[This message has been edited by 91AggieLawyer (edited 8/3/2010 3:18p).]

Bowing implies worship to me, not criticism. If you bow to people you criticize, than I think you are different than most folks.

I read the link it is similar to things she said in the book. Saying someone was insecure and always trying to achieve is hardly bowing to them. I think you are wrong about her book.

[This message has been edited by BQ78 (edited 8/3/2010 4:51p).]

91Ag-

Her work isn't historically scholarly however it scholarly in other areas. She did not write it to criticize or present a historical perspective. She wrote it as a psychoanalysis of LBJs character. The hours she spent interviewing him was not done to gather historical facts, she did it to get inside the mind and character of LBJ.

There are 9 reviews of this book on JSTOR. All of them criticize the historical perspective of her work but recognize its value in delving into the mind of LBJ.

>>Saying someone was insecure and always trying to achieve is hardly bowing to them. I think you are wrong about her book.<<

The use of the term, bow, was mild hyperbole, not to mention metaphoric.

But your statement is silly: have you ever heard a parent make a critical statement of their child? You can't seriously be suggesting that because someone offers up what I think here is rather mild criticism of a political figure, that the person can't also be enamored (infatuated, in love, etc.) with that individual. She didn't say he had the heart of an ax-murderer. Further, she also knows darn well that much of what you list as criticisms were all but essential for anyone to achieve high office.

Finally, I was speaking in general of her, based on listening to her and reading articles she's written or been quoted in, not specifically her book.

I'll give you that she "bows" to his Great Society initiatives too much as a greater accomplishment than they were but she correctly paints Vietnam as the downfall of his administration. Granted she is a liberal and those views play very much into her take on the man but she isn’t blinded by her liberalism. She notes that his personality played a key role in both his accomplishments and disasters something everyone no matter what their political affiliation will agree on.
That's why I said read the book; don't criticize what she wrote without reading it. You apparently "skimmed" it too much or have a hard prejudice against Johnson. Yes, he was a very flawed President but still an interesting character. Read what she says about him and Vietnam, it’s now bowing at all.
Johnson’s overall insecurity is pretty unique for presidents, unless you include Nixon too, other than them, I wouldn’t label any of the others as “insecure.” So insecurity is not a hallmark of presidents.
No one has ever criticized my children so I can't relate to that metaphor either ?

McCullogh's Truman is one of my favorite books of all time.

As for a darkhorse: Read Francis Russell's The Shadow of Blooming Grove. It details the life of Warren Harding and is a great read.

91: Caro leaves out a number of salient factors. For example, he dumps on Johnson in book one for passing out money to poor Mexican-Americans in SA when working for another candidate. He neglects to mention that anybody who wanted to win in those days did that. It was like a voter registration drive now---it was a matter of course. He acts like Johnson invented it and was its sole practitioner.

His portrait of Coke Stevenson is a joke. That election was stolen, just like the one in '42 was stolen from Johnson. Caro acts like Johnson did it. There is no evidence at all that Johnson was aiding or directing Parr. Zip.

Except the old thug in the trailer park. I already discussed why that is bs.

Everybody from Texas who reviewed his books, including longtime Johnson haters, dumped on it because of its lack of feel for how the state operated in those days. Just one example, Robert Sherrill, a Texan and longtime LBJ hater at the leftwing Nation magazine, wrote a scathing review of the first book when it appeared.

Caro and his wife write beautifully and he does his research but he is about as objective as David Irving.