President Memoirs

From his time as a lifeguard in Illinois to a sports announcer to a rising actor to a labor union leader, then finally governor of California in the tumultuous 1960s and ultimately President, Reagan's life is told as it has never been before.

Barack Obama’s inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, inspired the world. But the great promise of “Change We Can Believe In” was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama’s historic first year in office has until now remained a mystery.

Our presidents loom so large in history that we often forget they are human. Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making? is a collection of handwritten love letters that offers a surprising and intimate portrait of the men who occupied the White House. From George Washington to Barack Obama, these are not the presidents we see in history books.

In this revealing and beautifully written memoir, Mark Obama Ndesandjo recounts his complex relationship with his older half brother, President Barack Obama, including their first meeting in Kenya over 20 years ago. The book also offers the author's inspiring personal story about identity and multiculturalism.

Shortly after losing all of his wealth in a terrible 1884 swindle, Ulysses S. Grant learned he had terminal throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and dying, Grant began to write his memoirs to save his family from permanent financial ruin. As Grant continued his work, suffering increasing pain, the American public became aware of this race between Grant's writing and his fatal illness. Twenty years after his respectful and magnanimous demeanor toward Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, people in the North and the South came to know Grant, now using his famous determination in this final effort.

Whether he was composing love letters, speeches, or legal arguments, words mattered to Abraham Lincoln. An admirer and avid reader of Byron, Burns, and Shakespeare, Lincoln was the most literary of our presidents. His views on love, liberty and human nature were all shaped by his reading and knowledge of literature. Kaplan explores Lincoln's life through his use of language as a vehicle for complex ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment.

Unthinkable just a generation ago, Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency and Nancy Pelosi's ascension to Speaker of the House have cast the spotlight on American political women as never before. In the 230 years of this country's history, never has a woman—let alone a mother and a grandmother—risen to such a position of power as Nancy Pelosi did when she assumed her role as the first female Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency.

When Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, his beautiful and flamboyant daughter was transformed into "Princess Alice", arguably the century's first global celebrity. Thirty-two years later, her first cousin Eleanor moved into the White House as First Lady. Born eight months and 20 blocks apart from each other in New York City, Eleanor and Alice spent a large part of their childhoods together and were far more alike than most historians acknowledge.

When polio paralyzed Franklin Roosevelt at the age of thirty-nine, people wept to think that the young man of golden promise must live out his days as a helpless invalid. He never again walked on his own. But in just over a decade, he regained his strength and seized the presidency. This was the most remarkable comeback in the history of American politics. And, as author James Tobin shows, it was the pivot of Roosevelt's life-the triumphant struggle that tempered and revealed his true character.

HansjÖrg Wyss grew up in a working-class family in Switzerland. As a college student in the 1950s, he traveled to the United States for a summer job in Colorado. It was there that he first experienced the majesty of the Grand Canyon and the American West, which forever changed him. As a business leader, Wyss pioneered a medical device company that transformed orthopedic surgery to the benefit of both doctors and patients. It was in business that Wyss developed a groundbreaking approach to problem-solving to create maximum impact.

Listen to this audiobook now to learn more about Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Explore the lives and relationship of the two founders of the Democratic party in these two captivating manuscripts.

Journalist M. William Phelps, author of 22 books, masterfully examines the crimes and failures of presidents Lyndon Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Richard Nixon, Andrew Jackson, and Woodrow Wilson, in this delightful audiobook that sheds new light on some rather telling moments in United States history. Using his expert storytelling techniques, Phelps draws listeners into the narrative and allows each to decide how bad and criminal a particular president's behavior actually was!

In this history book, discover the US Presidents from the 19th century, the main events of their presidency, their legacy, and impact on America’s history! In this book, we present a full century of American presidents — from Thomas Jefferson to William McKinley — in chronological order. Free from any political affiliation or ideological bias, these biographies allow you to experience in full all of their triumphs and tragedies, agendas, and accomplishments.

John and John Quincy Adams: rogue intellectuals, unsparing truth-tellers, too uncensored for their own political good. They held that political participation demanded moral courage. They did not seek popularity (it showed). They lamented the fact that hero worship in America substituted idolatry for results; and they made it clear that they were talking about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. When John Adams succeeded George Washington as President, his son had already followed him into public service and was stationed in Europe as a diplomat.

An awkward first meeting with US Army officers, on the eve of the Civil War. A conversation on the White House portico with a young cavalry sergeant who was a fiercely dedicated abolitionist. A tense exchange on a navy ship with a Confederate editor and businessman. In this eye-opening book, Elizabeth Brown Pryor examines six intriguing, mostly unknown encounters that Abraham Lincoln had with his constituents.

In Washington's Circle, David and Jeanne Heidler introduce not just the president but the group of extraordinary men who advised him. The familiar names are here, like the often irked and occasionally irksome John Adams, the scheming Alexander Hamilton, and the prodigiously talented James "Jemmy" Madison, but so are the lesser known Edmund Randolph, John Jay, and Gouverneur Morris. Washington's choices of whom to listen to, for better and sometimes worse, were as consequential as the advice his cabinet gave.

D'origine aristocratique, Winston Churchill entame une carrière politique en 1900. D'abord député conservateur puis libéral, plusieurs fois ministre de 1906 à 1929, il est élu aux communes en 1924.

Andrew Johnson never expected to be president. But just six weeks after becoming Abraham Lincoln's vice president, the events at Ford's Theatre thrust him into the nation's highest office. Johnson faced a nearly impossible task—to succeed America's greatest chief executive, to bind the nation's wounds after the Civil War, and to work with a Congress controlled by the so-called Radical Republicans. Annette Gordon-Reed, one of America's leading historians of slavery, shows how ill-suited Johnson was for this daunting task.

Malcolm MacKay’s new political biography of Edward J. Flynn is a lively and extremely relevant study of politics in New York State that illuminates the critical interplay of statesmanship and politics in New York State, and throughout the New Deal in Washington. MacKay’s book underlines the importance of Al Smith's administration as an intellectual and political precursor of the New Deal, and highlights the critical importance of Ed Flynn as a politician and a statesman, as well as vital link between Democratic Party politics and the accomplishment of New Deal policy initiatives.

A fresh look at Lady Bird Johnson that upends her image as a plain Jane who was married for her money and mistreated by Lyndon. This Lady Bird worked quietly behind the scenes through every campaign, every illness, and a trying presidency as a key strategist, fundraiser, barnstormer, peacemaker, and indispensable therapist.