President Memoirs

Amy Chozick’s assignments, covering Clinton’s imploding 2008 campaign and then her front-row seat to the 2016 election on ‘The Hillary Beat,’ set off a years-long journey in which the formative years of Chozick’s life became, both personally and professionally, intrinsically intertwined with Clinton’s presidential ambitions. As Clinton tried, and twice failed, to shatter ‘that highest, hardest glass ceiling,’ Chozick was trying, with various fits and starts, to scale the highest echelons of American journalism.

To know Donald J. Trump - to understand what makes the 45th president of the US tick - it is best to start in his natural habitat: Palm Beach, Florida. It is here he learned the techniques that took him all the way to the White House. Painstakingly, over decades, he has created a world in this exclusive tropical enclave and favorite haunt of billionaires where he is not just president but a king. The vehicle for his triumph is Mar-a-Lago, one of the greatest mansions ever built in the US.

The presidency of George W. Bush has been the subject of extensive commentary but limited scholarly analysis in the years since he left office. 43 draws extensively, but not solely, from the recently released interviews of the Miller Center's Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia.

En El largo camino hacia la libertad Nelson Mandela recorre el sendero de su extraordinaria vida. Descubriremos sus primeros pasos como estudiante y pasante en Johannesburgo, el lento despertar de su conciencia política, la ruptura de su primer matrimonio, la dolorosa separación de sus hijos, los veintisiete años que estuvo en prisión -repletos de acontecimientos-, su libertad y la instauración definitiva en Sudáfrica de una democracia multirracial.

This experienced author describes the personality of the first Czech president within the context of 20th-century history. He artfully combines historical occurrences with personal accounts, describing the nature of a totalitarian society and the unwavering pursuit of truth by individuals. Young listeners will acquire a lucid understanding of figures like Masaryk and Hitler, the aftermath of the Munich Betrayal, and the milieu in which Václav Havel came of age.

Three years after the political novice Volodymyr Zelensky was elected to Ukraine's highest office, he found himself catapulted into the role of war-time leader. The former comedian has become the public face of his country's courageous and bloody struggle against a brutal invasion. Born to Jewish parents in central Ukraine, Zelensky campaigned for the presidency in the 2019 election on the promise to restore trust in politics. Little did he know that he would be called upon to serve his people in the most demanding circumstances imaginable, fighting for the survival of his country.

When Otto Dietrich was invited in 1933 to become Adolf Hitler's press chief, he accepted with the simple uncritical conviction that Adolf Hitler was a great man, dedicated to promoting peace and welfare for the German people. At the end of the war, imprisoned and disillusioned, Otto Dietrich sat down to write what he had seen and heard in 12 years of the closest association with Hitler, requesting that it be published after his death.

Plain Speaking is a book based on conversations between Merle Miller and the thirty-third President of the United States, Harry S. Truman. From these interviews, as well as others who knew him over the years, Miller transcribes Truman’s feisty takes on everything from his personal life, military service, and political career to the challenges he faced in taking the office during the final days of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

The captivating second volume of this Eleanor Roosevelt biography covers tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II, the years of the Roosevelts' greatest challenges and finest achievements. In her remarkably engaging narrative, Cook gives us the complete Eleanor Roosevelt - an adventurous, romantic woman, a devoted wife and mother, and a visionary policymaker and social activist who often took unpopular stands, counter to her husband's policies, especially on issues such as racial justice and women's rights.

Ronald Reagan is hailed today for a presidency that restored optimism to America, engendered years of economic prosperity, and helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet until now little attention has been paid to the role Reagan's personal spirituality played in his political career, shaping his ideas, bolstering his resolve, and ultimately compelling him to confront the brutal - and, not coincidentally, atheistic - Soviet empire.

In this important new biography, Ronald C. White, Jr. offers a fresh and fascinating definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity - what today's commentators are calling "authenticity" - whose internal moral compass is the key to understanding his life. Through meticulous research, utilizing recently discovered Lincoln letters, legal papers, and photographs, White depicts Lincoln as a person of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, and capable of changing his mind.

Most political origin stories reinforce the feeling that politics is a closed system: If you weren’t participating in debate club, the Young Democrats, and Model UN, you have no chance. Karine Jean-Pierre’s story breaks the mold. Karine Jean-Pierre’s story breaks the mold. In Moving Forward, she tells how she got involved, showing how politics can be accessible to anyone, no matter their background. In today’s political climate, the need for all of us to participate has never been more crucial.

From master storyteller and historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II.

The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump provides a coherent and nuanced psychological portrait of Donald Trump, drawing upon biographical events in the subject's life and contemporary scientific research and theory in personality, developmental, and social psychology.

For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight. Historian Joseph J. Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today "hover[s] over the political scene like one of those dirigibles cruising above a crowded football stadium, flashing words of inspiration to both teams".

The definitive life of Abraham Lincoln, With Malice Toward None is historian Stephen B. Oates's acclaimed and enthralling portrait of America's greatest leader. In this award-winning biography, Lincoln steps forward out of the shadow of myth as a recognizable, fully drawn American whose remarkable life continues to inspire and inform us today.

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.

The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left a contradictory stamp on his country and on the world.

In the early hours of November 9, 2016, one of the most contentious, polarizing, and vicious presidential races came to an abrupt and unexpected end when heavily favored presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton called Donald J. Trump to concede, shocking a nation that had, only hours before, given little credence to his chances. Donald Trump pulled the greatest upset in American political history despite a torrent of invective and dismissal of the mainstream media.

The wry, honest and often hilarious chronicles of a very brave and clever TV presenter, Arctic Explorer and general drawer of the Short Straw. Moving quickly on from the devastating crash that nearly killed him he ranges widely over his life and times: a visit to Glastonbury with James May reminds of him of his early years of playing in a band and how and why he never quite made it as a rock star.