100 Best Presidents Books of All Time (Updated for 2026)

1

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Doris Kearns Goodwin

5.0

Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Repub

Recommended by Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Kobe Bryant, and 8 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The Oval office can be a lonely place, so reading about your forefather’s experience could only help. “The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult,” said President Obama in an interview. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

I loved Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and highly recommend this one too. [source]

Kobe Bryant

Basketball Player / LA Lakers

I loved Team of Rivals, and Leadership really built on the things I had taken away from that book. Moving from basketball to building a company, I needed to learn new and different leadership skills, and Goodwin outlines the different skill-sets of Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Lyndon Johnson, accessibly. [source]

2

John Adams

David McCullough

4.9

The enthralling, often surprising story of John Adams, one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in h

Recommended by Barack Obama and Antonio Villaraigosa.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult. [source]

Antonio Villaraigosa

I love biographies and this one in particular strikes me. I don’t believe John Adams comes immediately to mind as one of the great presidents, but he was. Students of history know he had a hand in so many of the founding documents we remember today. [source]

3

Grant

Ron Chernow

4.9

Preview Summary

The #1 New York Times bestseller.

New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2017

Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant.

Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal

Recommended by Bill Clinton and Jeremy Boudinet.

Bill Clinton

Former USA President

This is a good time for Ron Chernow’s fine biography of Ulysses S. Grant to appear… As history, it is remarkable, full of fascinating details sure to make it interesting both to those with the most cursory knowledge of Grant’s life and to those who have read his memoirs or any of several previous biographies… For all its scholarly and literary strengths, this book’s greatest service is to remind us of Grant’s significant achievements at the end of the war and after, which have too long been overlooked and are too important today to be left in the dark… As Americans continue the struggle to defend justice and equality in our tumultuous and divisive era, we need to know what Grant did when our country’s very existence hung in the balance. If we still believe in forming a more perfect union, his steady and courageous example is more valuable than ever. [source]

Jeremy Boudinet

I read Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant at a crucial point in my life, when I was struggling with a few personal and professional career ups-and-downs. Grant is a fascinating character in U.S. history. His life was a dramatic roller coaster of major personal and professional triumphs that were inevitably followed by periods of massive failure and disappointment. Of course, all of this led up to his historic date with destiny as the winning General the U.S. desperately needed during the Civil War. An important takeaway from Grant's story is his primary character virtue - a stoic determination that ultimately carried him through periods of disenchantment and brought the Union victory in the Civil War. There's a lesson in there for all of us fighting in the trenches of business - we'll inevitably face some of the same ups-and-downs that Grant did. And we should aim to carry ourselves like he did. [source]

4

Washington: A Life

Ron Chernow

4.7

The celebrated Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of America. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life, he carries the reader through Washington's troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian Wars, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his mag

Recommended by Barack Obama and Ryan Holiday.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The president also released a list of his summer favorites back in 2015: All That Is, James Salter The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

In terms of big biographies, Ron Chernow’s biography of Washington, Eric Romm’s biography of Seneca Dying Every Day (LOVED THIS) and Edmund Morris’ final biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Col. Roosevelt were all worth every page. [source]

5

Truman

David McCullough

4.7

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian.

The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallac

6

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Candice Millard

4.7

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked

Recommended by Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday

Author

These two unusual historical narratives about U.S presidents are shockingly good. I will read whatever else this woman writes. [source]

7

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

Edmund Morris

4.7

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time

Described by the Chicago Tribune as "a classic," The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt stands as one of the greatest biographies of our time. The publication of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt on September 14th, 2001 marks the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt becoming president.

Recommended by Barack Obama, Ryan Holiday, and Simon Johnson.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The Oval office can be a lonely place, so reading about your forefather’s experience could only help. “The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult,” said President Obama in an interview. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

When I was younger I would ask any smart or successful person I met to recommend a book for me to read. Dr. Drew recommended that I read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. It immediately became a lifetime favorite that I have reread several times (Amazon tells me I bought it Oct 26, 2006). It ends the day he is telegraphed that McKinley has been assassinated–so the book focuses on everything before that from his unusual childhood and struggle with asthma to his love nature to his trip west after the simultaneous death of his wife and mother. I’m not sure why I took so long to read this sequel but it is just as good, if not better. Focusing on Roosevelt from the end of presidency to the end of his life, there is enough material just in that portion of his life to put everyone else to shame. It covers his retirement, his safari in Africa, his exploration of the River of Doubt, his run as a third party candidate and finally his heartbreaking struggles with WWI and his son’s death. Goddamn, TR was a good man. [source]

Simon Johnson

This book is about admiration for a man who rises through a series of remarkable coincidences. The key thing is that he channelled the times. [source]

8

Becoming

Michelle Obama

4.6

Preview Summary

In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and aro

Recommended by Barack Obama, Piers Morgan, Mary Burkey, and 3 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Of course, @MichelleObama’s my wife, so I’m a little biased here. But she also happens to be brilliant, funny, wise – one of a kind. This book tells her quintessentially American story. I love it because it faithfully reflects the woman I have loved for so long. [source]

Piers Morgan

Congrats to @MichelleObama on sensational sales of her new book #Becoming. I always take people as I find them & when I met her at the White House, she was a delightfully warm, friendly & genuine lady. A great First Lady & now a best-selling author. https://t.co/nlSUHI01SM [source]

Mary Burkey

This is a case where you have to hear Michelle Obama read her story. It’s her story and she puts her whole emotional self into it. [source]

9

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

Jon Meacham

4.6

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was th

Recommended by Ken Coleman.

Ken Coleman

My favorite non-business book is Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham because I am a history nut, and I am fascinated by Thomas Jefferson. [source]

10

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

Jon Meacham

4.5

The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington forever

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to t

11

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

Candice Millard

4.5

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its s

Recommended by Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday

Author

These two unusual historical narratives about U.S presidents are shockingly good. I will read whatever else this woman writes. [source]

12

The Path to Power

Robert A. Caro

4.5

The Years of Lyndon Johnson is the political biography of our time. No president—no era of American politics—has been so intensively and sharply examined at a time when so many prime witnesses to hitherto untold or misinterpreted facets of a life, a career, and a period of history could still be persuaded to speak.

The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almo

Recommended by H W Brands.

H W Brands

Caro is another master storyteller. Like Parton, Caro supplements the written record with fresh evidence. He was a journalist. He interviewed all sorts of people and got information on Johnson that others hadn’t uncovered. He tells a great, gripping story. One of his volumes on Lyndon Johnson is called The Path to Power. Caro is fascinated by how people acquire power, what they use power to accomplish, and how power changes them. [source]

13

Alexander Hamilton

Ron Chernow

4.5

Preview Summary

The inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton!

In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, National Book Award winner Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is “a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, o

Recommended by Travis Kalanick, Ryan Holiday, Fabrice Grinda, and 4 others.

Travis Kalanick

Travis Kalanick changed his Twitter avatar to Alexander Hamilton after having read this book. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

Related and with equal weight, I want to recommend George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon by Stephen W. Sears (a biography of the talented but utterly delusional General George McClellan), Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.C. Gwynne (a biography of the brilliant but manic Stonewall Jackson) and Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (an equally brilliant, more accomplished but equally tragic founding father). All these books made me angry, sad, and confused. But they also made me look inward and taught me quite a bit. [source]

Fabrice Grinda

I read books for fun. It just so happens that they often are also insightful, but I would not say any specific book had a huge influence on me. Some biographies like Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow are inspiring, but it’s not as though they changed my career path. I knew I wanted to be an Internet entrepreneur from a very young age. [source]

14

Lincoln

David Herbert Donald

4.5

A masterful work by Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Herbert Donald, Lincoln is a stunning portrait of Abraham Lincoln’s life and presidency.

Donald brilliantly depicts Lincoln’s gradual ascent from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to the ever-expanding political circles in Illinois, and finally to the presidency of a country divided by civil war. Donald goes beyond biography, illuminating th

15

Theodore Rex

Edmund Morris

4.5

Theodore Roosevelt and his two-term presidency (1901-9) deserve a king-size, seize-the-man biography - and Edmund Morris has provided one. "TR" typifies the "can do" American; his famous maxim, of course, was "Speak softly but carry a big stick." Morris presents eyewitness history through the voices of the makers and shakers. His exhilarating narrative will captivate readers, providing welcome con

16

Master of the Senate

Robert A. Caro

4.5

The most riveting political biography of our time, Robert A. Caro’s life of Lyndon B. Johnson, continues. Master of the Senate takes Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 through 1960, in the United States Senate. Once the most august and revered body in politics, by the time Johnson arrived the Senate had become a parody of itself and an obstacle

Recommended by Robert Greene, James Purnell, and Julian E. Zelizer.

Robert Greene

Author

My favorite bio I've read for my upcoming book. [source]

James Purnell

Yes. Perhaps it’s only for the true believers. It is quite an enterprise to read, but compelling partly because Lyndon Johnson was such a beautifully unattractive character. He was a horrible bully who humiliated his staff and who found a way of endearing himself to the oil barons of Texas by launching a McCarthyite campaign, before McCarthy, against the electricity regulator. He ruined this guy’s life by accusing him of being a communist when he was nothing of the sort. So, on the one hand he was an ogre, but on the other hand he was the first person to get any civil rights legislation through the senate since the Civil War. The question is: do the ends justify the means? In his case the means were unspeakable but until Lyndon Johnson the Southern Democrats (some of whom were white supremacists) used the filibuster to stop any civil rights legislation getting through. He convinced them that he was on their side. [source]

Julian E. Zelizer

I always tell people that this is one of the first books you should read if you’re really interested in congressional history. It’s a wonderful book, the third part of Caro’s multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson that focuses on his time as Senate Majority Leader. It’s also a splendid history of the Senate itself. [source]

17

Leadership: In Turbulent Times

Doris Kearns Goodwin

4.5

Preview Summary

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership quali

Recommended by David Novak, Fola Aina, and Scott Belsky.

David Novak

3 great strategies to use when marketing to Millennials from @guicostin, author of the book "Millennials Are Not Aliens" on my latest @oGoLead Leadership Podcast -> https://t.co/vjNDbmY9Ll https://t.co/76iGmkIXno [source]

Fola Aina

Literally just finished reading one of the BEST books out there on leadership: ‘Leadership In Turbulent Times’ by Doris Kearns Goodwin. If you are serious about leading yourself and preparing yourself to take on leadership roles this book is a MUST read. Now on to the next! [source]

Scott Belsky

Scott Belsky recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show". [source]

18

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism

Doris Kearns Goodwin

4.4

Doris Kearns Goodwin, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of Team of Rivals, captures the Progressive Era through the story of the broken friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, culminating in their running against one another for president in 1912.

Recommended by Bill Gates.

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

I’m especially interested in the central question that Doris Kearns Goodwin raises in The Bully Pulpit. How does social change happen? Can it be driven by a single inspirational leader, or do other factors have to lay the groundwork first? Sometimes a single leader can make a big difference: In the field of global health, Jim Grant almost single-handedly created a global constituency for children, sparking a movement to double vaccination rates and save millions of lives. But Roosevelt’s case was different. Although he tried to push through a number of political reforms earlier in his career, he wasn’t really successful until journalists at McClure’s and other publications had rallied public support for change. [source]

Cover unavailable

19

His Excellency: George Washington

Joseph J. Ellis

4.4

To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like so

20

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

Doris Kearns Goodwin

4.4

Winner of the Pulitzer for History, No Ordinary Time is a chronicle of one of the most vibrant & revolutionary periods in US history. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin weaves together a number of story lines—the Roosevelt’s marriage & partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, & FDR’s White House & its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin melds these into an i

21

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt

David McCullough

4.4

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it also won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography. Now with a new introduction by the author, Mornings on Horseback is reprinted as a Simon & Schuster Classic

22

The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

Harlow Giles Unger

4.4

Founding Father James Monroe (1751-1831) long outlived the birth of the country and became so revered that he won two presidential elections (1816, 1820) with no significant opposition. In retrospect, it's easy to discern why: His credentials as a soldier, congressman, senator, ambassador, governor, and secretary of state establish him as arguably the best-prepared president in our nation's histor

23

Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2)

Robert A. Caro

4.4

With this, the second volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro enters into the central narrative of his magisterial biography - one of the richest, most intensive and revealing examinations ever undertaken of an American President.

Here we have Johnson's service in the Second World War and the foundation of his long-concealed fortunes- as well as the facts behind the myths he created abou

Recommended by Jim Collins and Van Jones.

Van Jones

I’m always fascinated by people from humble beginnings in our country who rise up to do great things, whether that’s Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama or even Jesse Jackson. It’s almost a common trope that you have kids who grow up in very humble, hard backgrounds, who in our country can rise to become tremendous champions. [source]

24

Eisenhower in War and Peace

Jean Edward Smith

4.4

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Christian Science Monitor • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Magisterial.”—The New York Times

In this extraordinary volume, Jean Edward Smith presents a portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America’s thirty-fourth president. Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kan

Recommended by Brian Armstrong and Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday

Author

I also strongly recommend Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith–I did not fully appreciate what a strategic and political genius Eisenhower was until this book. [source]

25

Colonel Roosevelt

Edmund Morris

4.4

This biography by Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex, marks the completion of a trilogy sure to stand as definitive. Of all our great presidents, Theodore Roosevelt is the only one whose greatness increased out of office. What other president has written forty books, hunted lions, founded a third political pa

Recommended by Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday

Author

In terms of big biographies, Ron Chernow’s biography of Washington, Eric Romm’s biography of Seneca Dying Every Day (LOVED THIS) and Edmund Morris’ final biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Col. Roosevelt were all worth every page. [source]

26

Decision Points

George W. Bush

4.4

In this candid and gripping account, President George W. Bush describes the critical decisions that shaped his presidency and personal life.

George W. Bush served as president of the United States during eight of the most consequential years in American history. The decisions that reached his desk impacted people around the world and defined the times in which we live.

Decision Points brings readers

Cover unavailable

27

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

Joseph J. Ellis

4.3

Following his subject from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Joseph Ellis unravels the contradictions of the Jeffersonian character. A marvel of scholarship, a delight to read, and an essential gloss on the Jeffersonian legacy.

28

All the President's Men

Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein

4.3

This landmark book details all the events of the biggest political scandal in the history of this nation--Watergate. Woodward and Bernstein kept the headlines coming, delivering revelation after amazing revelation to a shocked public. Black-and-white photograph section.

Recommended by Nick Davies.

Nick Davies

What is so good about All the President’s Men is that most books about journalists are full of gun fights and car chases – but that’s just not what the job involves. Woodward and Bernstein simply wrote a great, really detailed account of the work that went into the case. I still use sections from it as case studies when I give lectures. [source]

Cover unavailable

29

Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush

Jon Meacham

4.3

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - In this brilliant biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush.

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - Time - NPR - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Drawing on President Bush's personal diaries, on the diaries of his wif

30

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Barack Obama

4.3

Nine years before the Senate campaign that made him one of the most influential and compelling voices in American politics, Barack Obama published this lyrical, unsentimental, and powerfully affecting memoir, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller when it was reissued in 2004. Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama’s struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a bl

Recommended by Robert McCrum.

Robert McCrum

He is really is a globish president and a brilliant writer. He is of Kenyan origin, grew up in Kansas and Hawaii. His reference is Islam, America, Kenyan tribal customs, Indonesia. [source]

31

The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)

Robert A. Caro

4.3

A New York Times Top Ten Book of 2012
Best Biography of 2012, National Book Critics Circle
A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction
A Best Book of the Year: The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, St. Louis Dispatch

The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and most triumphant periods of his career—1958 to 1964. It is an unparalleled account of the machinations

Recommended by Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday

Author

I read my first Robert Caro book, The Power Broker, almost ten years ago. Reading this one--his most recent--on the ascension of Lyndon Johnson reminded me just how much I LOVE really long books (I even ended up writing an article about them). As always, Robert Caro is a master of his craft. Despite being some 768 pages, this book flies by and you learn something about history, about human nature, about power on almost every page. I'll be moving on to one of his other Lyndon Johnson books next. [source]

32

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

4.3

The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long define

33

FDR

Jean Edward Smith

4.3

One of today’s premier biographers has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this superlative volume, Jean Edward Smith combines contemporary scholarship and a broad range of primary source material to provide an engrossing narrative of one of America’s greatest presidents.

This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details

Recommended by Barack Obama.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult. [source]

34

An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963

Robert Dallek

4.3

Drawing on previously unavailable material and never-before-opened archives, An Unfinished Life is packed with revelations large and small -- about JFK's health, his love affairs, RFK's appointment as Attorney General, what Joseph Kennedy did to help his son win the White House, and the path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement had he survived.

Robert Dallek succeeds as no other biog

35

Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times

H. W. Brands

4.3

National Bestseller

In this, the first major single-volume biography of Andrew Jackson in decades, H.W. Brands reshapes our understanding of this fascinating man, and of the Age of Democracy that he ushered in.

An orphan at a young age and without formal education or the family lineage of the Founding Fathers, Jackson showed that the Presidency was not the exclusive province of the wealthy and the

Cover unavailable

36

The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity

Nancy Gibbs, Michael Duffy

4.3

The Presidents Club, established at Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, is a complicated place: its members are bound forever by the experience of the Oval Office and yet are eternal rivals for history's favor. Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon co

Recommended by Peter Attia.

Peter Attia

Founder/Attia Medical

Just about to finish this book for the second time. Damn, I can’t say enough about it. If you have even a modicum of interest in US history post WWI, this is beyond required. [source]

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37

John Quincy Adams

Harlow Giles Unger

4.3

He fought for Washington, served with Lincoln, witnessed Bunker Hill, and sounded the clarion against slavery on the eve of the Civil War. He negotiated an end to the War of 1812, engineered the annexation of Florida, and won the Supreme Court decision that freed the African captives of The Amistad. He served his nation as minister to six countries, secretary of state, senator, congressman, and pr

Cover unavailable

38

Coolidge

Amity Shlaes

4.3

Calvin Coolidge, who served as president from 1923 to 1929, never rated highly in polls. The shy Vermonter, nicknamed "Silent Cal," has long been dismissed as quiet and passive. History has remembered the decade in which he served as a frivolous, extravagant period predating the Great Depression. Now Amity Shlaes, the author known for her riveting, unexpected portrait of the 1930s, provides a simi

Cover unavailable

39

Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America

Walter R. Borneman

4.3

Biography. In Polk, Walter R. Borneman gives us the first complete and authoritative biography of a president often overshadowed in image but seldom outdone in accomplishment.

Cover unavailable

40

Wilson

A. Scott Berg

4.3

From Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times–bestselling author A. Scott Berg comes the definitive—and revelatory—biography of one of the great American figures of modern times.

One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writi

41

A Promised Land

Barack Obama

4.3

Preview Summary

Cover unavailable

42

Grant

Jean Edward Smith

4.2

Ulysses S. Grant was the first four-star general in the history of the United States Army and the only president between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to serve eight consecutive years in the White House. As general in chief, Grant revolutionized modern warfare. As president, he brought stability to the country after years of war and upheaval. Yet today Grant is remembered as a brilliant genera

Cover unavailable

43

John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life

Paul C. Nagel

4.2

Nagel probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic, erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career spanned many offices: minister to Holland, Russia, and England, U.S. senator, secretary of state, president of the United States (1825-1829), and, finally, U.S. representative (the only ex-president to serve in the House). On the basis of a thorough study o

44

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever (The Killing of Historical Figures)

Bill O'Reilly

4.2

A riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly

The anchor of The O'Reilly Factor recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history—how one gunshot changed the country forever. In the spring of 1865, the bloody saga of America's Civil War finally come

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45

A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent

Robert W. Merry

4.2

When James K. Polk was elected president in 1844, the United States was locked in a bitter diplomatic struggle with Britain over the rich lands of the Oregon Territory, which included what is now Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Texas, not yet part of the Union, was threatened by a more powerful Mexico. And the territories north and west of Texas -- what would become California, Nevada, Utah, Arizon

46

American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

Ronald C. White

4.2

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the author of A. Lincoln, a major new biography of one of America's greatest generals--and most misunderstood presidents

Finalist for the Gilder-Lehrman Military History Book Prize

In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the "Trinity of Great American Leaders." But the battlefield commander-turned-commander-i

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47

Fear: Trump in the White House

Bob Woodward

4.2

With authoritative reporting honed through eight presidencies from Nixon to Obama, author Bob Woodward reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump’s White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and docume

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48

41: A Portrait of My Father

George W. Bush

4.2

George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, has authored a personal biography of his father, George H. W. Bush, the 41st President.

Forty-three men have served as President of the United States. Countless books have been written about them. But never before has a President told the story of his father, another President, through his own eyes and in his own words. A unique and intima

49

Long Walk To Freedom

Nelson Mandela

4.2

Preview Summary

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country.

Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring p

Recommended by Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Bianca Belair, and 1 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Bianca Belair

For #BHM I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 21st Book: Long Walk to Freedom -Nelson Mandela Read about his journey from childhood to the struggles of living under apartheid to becoming a freedom fighter & leader of his country. He is inspirational! https://t.co/bdvZu0kbh0 [source]

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50

James Madison: A Biography

Ralph Ketcham

4.2

The best one volume biography of Madison's life, Ketcham's biography not only traces Madison's career, it gives readers a sense of the man. As Madison said of his early years in Virginia under the study of Donald Robertson, who introduced him to thinkers like Montaigne and Montesquieu, "all that I have been in life I owe largely to that man." It also captures a side of Madison that is less rarely

51

The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World

A. J. Baime

4.2

“[A] well-judged and hugely readable book . . . few are as entertaining.”—Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

“A. J. Baime is a master. His reporting and storytelling are woven to hypnotic effect. This is history and humanity in lush, vivid color.”—Doug Stanton, author of The Odyssey of Echo Company

Heroes are often defined as ordinary characters who get pushed into extraordinary circumstances, and th

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52

Eisenhower: Soldier and President

Stephen E. Ambrose

4.2

Stephen E. Ambrose draws upon extensive sources, an unprecedented degree of scholarship, and numerous interviews with Eisenhower himself to offer the fullest, richest, most objective rendering yet of the soldier who became president. He gives us a masterly account of the European war theater and Eisenhower's magnificent leadership as Allied Supreme Commander. Ambrose's recounting of Eisenhower's p

53

Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot (The Killing of Historical Figures)

Bill O'Reilly

4.2

Tthe anchor of The O'Reilly Factor recounts in gripping detail the brutal murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy—and how a sequence of gunshots on a Dallas afternoon not only killed a beloved president but also sent the nation into the cataclysmic division of the Vietnam War and its culture-changing aftermath.

In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of

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54

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Rick Perlstein

4.2

Politically insightful, Nixonland recaptures the turbulent 60s & early 70s, revealing how Dick Nixon rose from the political grave to seize & hold the presidency. Perlstein's account begins with the '65 Watts riots, nine months after Johnson's landslide victory over Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus. Yet the next year, scores of liberals were tossed from Congress, America

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55

My Life

Bill Clinton

4.2

An exhaustive, soul-searching memoir, Bill Clinton's My Life is a refreshingly candid look at the former president as a son, brother, teacher, father, husband, and public figure. Clinton painstakingly outlines the history behind his greatest successes and failures, including his dedication to educational and economic reform, his war against a "vast right-wing operation" determined to destroy him,

56

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Robert A. Caro

4.2

Everywhere acknowledged as a modern American classic, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest books of the twentieth century, The Power Broker is a huge and galvanizing biography revealing not only the saga of one man's incredible accumulation of power, but the story of the shaping (and mis-shaping) of New York in the twentieth century.

Robert C

Recommended by Barack Obama, Ryan Holiday, Adam Townsend, and 2 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

He may have the country’s finest experts at his fingertips, but it still doesn’t hurt to read up on environmental and economic issues. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

It took me 15 days to read all 1,165 pages of this monstrosity that chronicles the rise of Robert Moses. I was 20 years old. It was one of the most magnificent books I’ve ever read. Moses built just about every other major modern construction project in New York City. The public couldn’t stop him, the mayor couldn’t stop him, the governor couldn’t stop him, and only once could the President of the United States stop him. But ultimately, you know where the cliché must take us. Robert Moses was an asshole. He may have had more brain, more drive, more strategy than other men, but he did not have more compassion. And ultimately power turned him into something monstrous. [source]

Adam Townsend

@willchamberlain Power broker is such a remarkable book. [source]

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57

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

Michael Wolff

4.2

With extraordinary access to the West Wing, Michael Wolff reveals what happened behind-the-scenes in the first nine months of the most controversial presidency of our time in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Since Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the country―and the world―has witnessed a stormy, outrageous, and absolutely mesmerizing presidential ter

Recommended by Seb Eckersleymaslin and Tony Schwartz.

Seb Eckersleymaslin

@shandsaker @ScottKilmartin @Hsuen Agreed. It’s tabloid. Read James Comey’s new book, it is much better. Some great lessons on true leadership in there. [source]

Tony Schwartz

From my experience of Trump, this is the most deeply accurate book that’s been written about him—the chaos he creates and which has enveloped all of us since he took office. Michael Wolff has a remarkable capacity to get inside the heads of people. He does it in this book just as he did it in his book about Rupert Murdoch. [source]

58

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

H.W. Brands

4.2

A sweeping, magisterial biography of the man generally considered the greatest president of the twentieth century, admired by Democrats and Republicans alike. Traitor to His Class sheds new light on FDR's formative years, his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised, his combination of political genius, firm leadership, and matchless diplomacy in saving democ

59

The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century

Scott Miller

4.1

In 1901, as America tallied its gains from a period of unprecedented imperial expansion, an assassin’s bullet shattered the nation’s confidence. The shocking murder of President William McKinley threw into stark relief the emerging new world order of what would come to be known as the American Century. The President and the Assassin is the story of the momentous years leading up to that event, and

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60

Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy

David O. Stewart

4.1

Best-selling author David Stewart challenges the traditional version of this pivotal moment in American history. Rather than seeing Johnson as Lincoln's political heir, Stewart explains how the Tennesseean squandered Lincoln's political legacy of equality and fairness and helped force the freed slaves into a brutal form of agricultural peonage across the South. Hardcover. Original jacket. Number l

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61

James Madison: A Life Reconsidered

Lynne Cheney

4.1

A major new biography of the fourth president of the United States by New York Times bestselling author Lynne Cheney

This majestic new biography of James Madison explores the astonishing story of a man of vaunted modesty who audaciously changed the world. Among the Founding Fathers, Madison was a true genius of the early republic.

Outwardly reserved, Madison was the intellectual driving force be

62

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Joseph J. Ellis

4.1

Informs our understanding of American politics--then and now--and gives us a new perspective on the unpredictable forces that shape history.

An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.

During the 1790s, which Ellis calls the most decisive

Recommended by Andrea Wulf.

Andrea Wulf

Instead of writing a massive 700-page book, Ellis just gives you seven events which will tell you everything you need to know. [source]

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63

Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

John Milton Cooper Jr.

4.1

The first major biography of America’s twenty-eighth president in nearly two decades, from one of America’s foremost Woodrow Wilson scholars.

A Democrat who reclaimed the White House after sixteen years of Republican administrations, Wilson was a transformative president—he helped create the regulatory bodies and legislation that prefigured FDR’s New Deal and would prove central to governance throu

64

Reagan: The Life

H. W. Brands

4.1

From master storyteller and New York Times bestselling Historian H. W. Brands comes the definitive biography of a visionary and transformative president

In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Rea

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65

Richard Nixon: The Life

John A. Farrell

4.1

Brilliantly researched, authoritatively crafted by a prize-winning biographer, and lively on the page, this is the Nixon we've been waiting for.

Richard Nixon opens with young Navy lieutenant "Nick" Nixon returning from the Pacific and setting his cap at Congress, an idealistic dreamer seeking to build a better world. Yet amid the turns of that now legendary 1946 campaign, Nixon's finer attributes

66

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

James L. Swanson

4.1

A fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, this is history as you've never read it before.

The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history -- the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry and detectives on a wi

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67

The Life of Andrew Jackson

Robert V. Remini

4.1

The classic one-volume biography of Andrew Jackson

Robert V. Remini's prizewinning, three-volume biography, The Life of Andrew Jackson, won the National Book Award upon its completion in 1984. Now, Remini captures the essence of the life and career of the seventh president of the United States in the meticulously crafted single-volume abridgement.

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68

Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President

Robert J. Rayback

4.1

For some reason hard to understand, the historically minded public has had to wait 85 years since the death of a president for an adequate biography. This gap has now been filled with Dr. Rayback's authoritative work on Millard Fillmore. It is no eulogy, rather it is honest and unprejudiced, describing and assaying his defects of judgment such as his leadership of two abused parties at the beginni

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69

Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President

Ari Hoogenboom

4.1

Who was the real Rutherford B. Hayes? Was he a great or inconsequential president? How did his early life and career shape his later years? How did his triumphs and failures alter our history? And why should we care? Ari Hoogenboom's masterful life of Hayes definitively answers those questions and shows why our nineteenth president deserves far greater recognition than he's received in the past.

Th

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70

Martin Van Buren

Ted Widmer, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

4.1

One of the collection of biographies on the American presidents. this one is about Martin Van Buren.

71

1776

David McCullough

4.1

In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence, when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

Based on ex

Recommended by Sean Junkins.

Sean Junkins

@msphillipsrvhs @rvhs Great book! Can never go wrong with anything from David McCullough! [source]

72

Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford

Clint Hill

4.1

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November reflects on his seventeen years on the Secret Service for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.

The assassination of one president, the resignation of another, and the swearing-in of the two who followed those traumatic events. Clint Hill was there, on duty, through Five Presidents.

After a

Recommended by Chuck Robbins.

73

His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life

Jonathan Alter

4.1

Preview Summary

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74

Washington: The Indispensable Man

James Thomas Flexner

4.1

After more than two decades, this dramatic and concise single-volume distillation of James Thomas Flexner's definitive four-volume biography George Washington, which received a Pulitzer Prize citation and a National Book Award for the fourth volume, has itself become an American classic. Now in a new trade paperback edition, this masterful work explores the Father of Our Country - sometimes an unp

75

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

Jon Meacham

4.1

Preview Summary

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76

A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig

4.1

Rucker and Leonnig have deep and unmatched sources throughout Washington, D.C., and for the past three years have chronicled in depth the ways President Donald Trump has reinvented the presidency in his own image, shaken foreign alliances and tested American institutions. It would be all too easy to mistake Trump's first term for pure chaos. But Leonnig and Rucker show that in fact there is a patt

Recommended by Mark Hamill, Andrew Feinberg, Barry R Mccaffrey, and 3 others.

Mark Hamill

Another Highly Anticipated Book by two Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters, has already proven to be a best-seller, to their great delight, all for the purpose of exposing a "President" who is demeaning and belittling our Country, at a record clip. You're welcome! https://t.co/kDG9rwpr9p [source]

Andrew Feinberg

The book is real. The title comes from @realDonaldTrump's own words. @PhilipRucker and @CarolLeonnig are first-rate journalists & two of the best on the White House beat. If the past 3 years prove anything, it's that him calling reporting fake is as good as a confirmation. https://t.co/N0pVdVdEz3 [source]

Barry R Mccaffrey

A must read book by objective and professional journalists. Just picked up my copy. Did radio interview this morning on the RICK UNGAR SHOW about the scene in which Trump berates the JCS Generals in his first meeting calling them DOPES AND BABIES. Unreal. https://t.co/cinOBSBTbp [source]

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77

First Family: Abigail and John Adams

Joseph J. Ellis

4.1

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of "Founding Brothers" and "His Excellency "brings America's preeminent first couple to life in a moving and illuminating narrative that sweeps through the American Revolution and the republic's tenuous early years.
John and Abigail Adams left an indelible and remarkably preserved portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence: both

78

Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America

Jared Cohen

4.1

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the character of the man in that powerful seat affects the nation and world.

Eight men have succeeded to the presidency when the incumbent died in office. In one way

Recommended by Eric Schmidt, Adam Grant, and Ashton Kutcher.

Eric Schmidt

CEO/Google

A timely book that is highly relevant to today's politics. [source]

Adam Grant

It’s rare for a physician to become a prominent social scientist. It’s even rarer for that person to write a book that opens your eyes to a fresh way of understanding the world. Blueprint is a contrarian exploration of how good societies may be shaped less by historical forces and more by natural selection. [source]

Ashton Kutcher

If you think today’s politics are wild, read this book. [source]

79

Benjamin Harrison (The American Presidents, #23)

Charles W. Calhoun

4.1

The scion of a political dynasty ushers in the era of big government

Politics was in Benjamin Harrison's blood. His great-grandfather signed the Declaration and his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, was the ninth president of the United States. Harrison, a leading Indiana lawyer, became a Republican Party champion, even taking a leave from the Civil War to campaign for Lincoln. After a scandal-f

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80

John Tyler

May, Gary

4.1

The first “accidental president,” whose secret maneuverings brought Texas into the Union and set secession in motion

When William Henry Harrison died in April 1841, just one month after his inauguration, Vice President John Tyler assumed the presidency. It was a controversial move by this Southern gentleman, who had been placed on the fractious Whig ticket with the hero of Tippecanoe in order t

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81

The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama

David Remnick

4.0

No story has been more central to America’s history this century than the rise of Barack Obama, and until now, no journalist or historian has written a book that fully investigates the circumstances and experiences of Obama’s life or explores the ambition behind his rise. Those familiar with Obama’s own best-selling memoir or his campaign speeches know the touchstones and details that he chooses t

Recommended by Van Jones.

Van Jones

President Obama’s stark victory in 2008 was one of the signal events, I think, in American history. While we’re very close to it right now – so we’re kind of worried about what’s happening in this subcommittee and that new cycle and this language in that bill – this is a watershed moment. America is a particularly interesting country in that it has a very ugly founding reality that’s very unequal but has a founding dream that is beautiful and is about equality. We hold it to be self-evident that all are created equal and so we’ve had this long 200-plus-year journey trying to drag that unequal founding reality closer to that beautiful founding dream of equality, and this is a huge marker along that journey. That’s why the whole world was touched by our achievement here with the president’s election and I wanted to know more of the back-story. [source]

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82

First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton

David Maraniss

4.0

Who exactly is Bill Clinton, and why was he, of all the brilliant and ambitious men in his generation, the first in his class to reach the White House? Drawing on hundreds of letters, documents, and interviews, David Maraniss explores the evolution of the personality of our forty-second president from his youth in Arkansas to his 1991 announcement that he would run for the nation's highest office.

Recommended by David Maraniss.

David Maraniss

From the time they first met at Yale Law School, in 1971, they saw that together they could get places that they could not get to apart. [source]

83

The Complete Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant

4.0

General Grant's personal memoirs are a must read for all Civil War buffs and those even remotely interested in history. This book, which includes both Volume I and II, articulately spells out the military career of one of the United States' greatest generals. Grant's memoirs are well-written, thoughtful, insightful, and offer more than a glimpse into the mind of U.S. Grant. Volume I opens with a h

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84

The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace

H.W. Brands

4.0

From New York Times bestselling author H. W. Brands, a masterful biography of the Civil War general and two-term president who saved the Union twice, on the battlefield and in the White House, holding the country together at two critical turning points in our history.

Ulysses Grant rose from obscurity to discover he had a genius for battle, and he propelled the Union to victory in the Civil War. Af

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85

A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House

David Sobel, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

4.0

Written by one of our foremost historians and published in 1965, A Thousand Days is still considered the most complete and definitive portrait of John F. Kennedy and his administration. Handpicked by Kennedy to serve as special assistant to the president, historian and Harvard professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. witnessed firsthand the politics and personalities that influenced some of the most i

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86

James Madison

Richard Brookhiser

4.0

James Madison led one of the most influential and prolific lives in American history, and his storyalthough all too often overshadowed by his more celebrated contemporariesis integral to that of the nation. Madison helped to shape our country as perhaps no other Founder: collaborating on the Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights, resisting government overreach by assembling one of the nations f

87

Profiles in Courage

John F Kennedy

4.0

The Pulitzer Prize winning classic by President John F. Kennedy, with an introduction by Caroline Kennedy and a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy.

Written in 1955 by the then junior senator from the state of Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage serves as a clarion call to every American.

In this book Kennedy chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding

Recommended by Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday

Author

Written by President Kennedy when he was bedridden after back surgery, Profiles in Courage recounts the inspiring acts of eight different American Senators, including John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Sam Houston, and Robert A. Taft. Kennedy had recently been elected as the junior Senator from Massachusetts and was inspired to write a book after reading a passage from The Price of Union about an act of courage by John Quincy Adams while serving in the Senate. It was heartening to read about Senators willing to cross party lines and stand up for their principles given the current state of our Congress. [source]

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88

Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream

Doris Kearns Goodwin

4.0

Doris Kearns Goodwin's classic life of Lyndon Johnson, who presided over the Great Society, the Vietnam War & other defining moments the tumultuous '60s, is a monument in political biography. From the moment the author, then a young woman from Harvard, 1st encountered President Johnson at a White House dance in the spring of 67, she became fascinated by the man: his character, his enormous energy

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89

The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

Matthew Algeo

4.0

On July 1, 1893, President Grover Cleveland vanished. He boarded a friend’s yacht, sailed into the calm blue waters of Long Island Sound, and--poof!--disappeared. He would not be heard from again for five days. What happened during those five days, and in the days and weeks that followed, was so incredible that, even when the truth was finally revealed, many Americans simply would not believe it.
T

90

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Erik Larson

4.0

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and The Devil in the White City delivers a startlingly fresh portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz

On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would w

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91

John Tyler, the Accidental President

Edward P. Crapol

4.0

The first vice president to become president on the death of the incumbent, John Tyler (1790-1862) was derided by critics as His Accidency. Yet he proved to be a bold leader who used the malleable executive system to his advantage. In this biography of the tenth President of the United States, Edward P. Crapol challenges previous depictions of Tyler as a die-hard advocate of states' rights, limite

92

With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln

Stephen B. Oates

4.0

“Full, fair, and accurate. . . . Certainly the most objective biography of Lincoln ever written.” —Pulitzer Prize-winner David Herbert Donald, New York Times Book Review

From preeminent Civil War historian Stephen B. Oates comes the book the Washington Post hails as “the standard one-volume biography of Lincoln.” Oates’ With Malice Toward None is recognized as the seminal biography of the Sixteenth

Recommended by Robert Greene.

Robert Greene

Author

A few of my favorite bios for the new book. #whatimreading [source]

93

Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

Jon Meacham

4.0

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of "the Greatest Generation." In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique one--a president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during the war) and

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94

Zachary Taylor

John S. D. Eisenhower, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Sean Wilentz

4.0

The rough-hewn general who rose to the nation's highest office, and whose presidency witnessed the first political skirmishes that would lead to the Civil War

Zachary Taylor was a soldier's soldier, a man who lived up to his nickname, "Old Rough and Ready." Having risen through the ranks of the U.S. Army, he achieved his greatest success in the Mexican War, propelling him to the nation's highest of

95

Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World

Margaret MacMillan, Richard Holbrooke, Casey Hampton

4.0

'Without question, Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919 is the most honest and engaging history ever written about those fateful months after World War I when the maps of Europe were redrawn. Brimming with lucid analysis, elegant character sketches, and geopolitical pathos, it is essential reading.'

Between January and July 1919, after "the war to end all wars," men and women from around the world conve

Recommended by James Purnell and Mike Maclay.

James Purnell

She focuses on the meeting between Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson that decided what the new boundaries would be for the world at Versailles in 1919. [source]

Mike Maclay

The beautiful story she tells is how men of goodwill did try to make the Second World War impossible. [source]

96

President McKinley: Architect of the American Century

Robert W. Merry

4.0

97

The Case for Trump

Victor Davis Hanson

4.0

This New York Times bestselling Trump biography from a major American intellectual explains how a renegade businessman became one of the most successful -- and necessary -- presidents of all time.

In The Case for Trump, award-winning historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson explains how a celebrity businessman with no political or military experience triumphed over sixteen well-qua

Recommended by Neal Houston.

Neal Houston

@VDHanson on “The Case For Trump” How did blue-collar voters connect with a millionaire from Queens in the 2016 election? Senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson addresses that question and more in his newly released book, The Case for Trump. Very insightful https://t.co/EEL6cjO5WT [source]

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98

The Reagan Diaries

Ronald Reagan

4.0

During his two terms as the fortieth president of the United States, Ronald Reagan kept a daily diary in which he recorded, by hand, his innermost thoughts and observations on the extraordinary, the historic, and the routine day-to-day occurrences of his presidency. Brought together in one volume and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, "The Reagan Diaries" provides a striking insight into one of

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99

A. Lincoln

Ronald C. White Jr.

4.0

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post • The Philadelphia Inquirer • The Christian Science Monitor • St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER AWARD

Everyone wants to define the man who signed his name “A. Lincoln.” In his lifetime and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves to characterize Lincoln according to their own labe

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100

Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents, #29)

John W. Dean, Arthur M. Schlesinger

4.0

President Nixon's former counsel illuminates another presidency marked by scandal

Warren G. Harding may be best known as America's worst president. Scandals plagued him: the Teapot Dome affair, corruption in the Veterans Bureau and the Justice Department, and the posthumous revelation of an extramarital affair.

Raised in Marion, Ohio, Harding took hold of the small town's newspaper and turned it int