Presidential Biographies

A few years ago I read David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, the second President of the United States. I became fascinated not only by Adams’ life story, but by the politics of the time, and how many of the key issues of the United States in the 18th Century resonate today, in the 21st.

Later, shortly after the 2016 presidential election, I thought to read biographies of historical presidents that our new president was often compared to. I started with Richard M. Nixon, and later moved on to Ulysses S. Grant. Fascinated by the pre-Gilded Age 19th Century, I read up on Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, and even oft-forgotten and neglected Chester A. Arthur.

Pretty soon, I had an idea that I might write book reports, or rather Presidential Reports, on the presidents. Along the way, I’d also listened to the Presidential podcast by Washington Post reporter Lillian Cunningham, and filled in some gaps with Wikipedia and other websites. The Backstory podcast and Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast also helped round out American history more broadly.

My main source, a “source of sources”, as it were, is Stephen Floyd’s Best Presidential Biographies. Right off the bat, I knew that I would not have the time to critically read multiple biographies of each President, so I’ve relied on Mr. Floyd’s assessment to pick one or two biographies of each. There are some books I picked before I found his site, and others that I picked because of convenience, such as an FDR biography I bought at a public library sale, for $.25 (a quarter).

There are two basic tracks I try to follow in each biography. What was this president like as a leader? What were the politics of the day? There is a common notion that a leader, in any context, is an authority that the followers can trust in to make good decisions, but in reality a leader is subject to constraints, like all of us, not entirely within their control. Those constraints can include the politics of the day, fueled by contemporary events, that the leader may be able to overcome – but not always.

Presidential biographies have proven a good way to learn more about American history as well. While I’ve been a lifelong student of history, the decades leading up to the Civil War, as well as the years after Reconstruction wound down and on up to World War I, were years I was only passingly familiar with.

I am also fascinated with history from my childhood, coloring in the things I might have heard as a child about Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, but with an adult understanding and knowledge of what was going on.

That said, one of my personal rules is basically: the subject cannot still be alive, and 2; there must be at least twenty years since they were in office. I feel like history needs at least a generation to even begin to assess a President somewhat evenly. So, as of this writing, no Jimmy Carter, no Trump, no Obama, No Bush 43. Reagan, Bush 41, and pretty much anyone before Carter are fair game.

In each of these reports, I try to answer three basic questions:

  1. What were the issues of the day?
  2. How did the President address those issues?
  3. Could this President be elected President today?

I’ve organized my reading into the six political eras of the United States. Most of my earlier reading was from the third era, but I’ve since gone back to complete the first era – the Presidents who were all Founding Fathers. As I complete the other eras, I’ll be updating this page as well.

You can navigate using the menus or click on specific Presidents below. I’m listing them all, even the ones I won’t get to anytime soon.

  1. George Washington
  2. John Adams
  3. Thomas Jefferson
  4. James Madison
  5. James Monroe
  6. John Quincy Adams
  7. Andrew Jackson
  8. Martin Van Buren
  9. William Henry Harrison (“Tippecanoe”)
  10. John Tyler
  11. James K. Polk
  12. Zachary Taylor
  13. Millard Fillmore
  14. Franklin Pierce
  15. James Buchanan
  16. Abraham Lincoln
  17. Andrew Johnson
  18. Ulysses S. Grant
  19. Rutherford B. Hayes
  20. James A. Garfield
  21. Chester A. Arthur
  22. Grover Cleveland
  23. Benjamin Harrison
  24. Grover Cleveland (redux)
  25. William McKinley
  26. Theodore Roosevelt
  27. William Howard Taft
  28. Woodrow Wilson
  29. Warren G. Harding
  30. Calvin Coolidge
  31. Herbert Hoover (“Silent Cal”)
  32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  33. Harry Truman
  34. Dwight D. Eisenhower
  35. John F. Kennedy
  36. Lyndon B. Johnson
  37. Richard M. Nixon
  38. Gerald Ford
  39. Jimmy Carter
  40. Ronald Reagan
  41. George H.W. Bush
  42. Bill Clinton
  43. George W. Bush
  44. Barack Obama
  45. Donald J. Trump
  46. Joe Biden