From the acclaimed bestselling author of The Conquerors Michael Beschloss has brought us a brilliantly readable and inspiring saga about crucial times in America's history when a courageous President dramatically changed the future of the United States. With surprising new sources and a dazzling command of history and human character, Beschloss brings to life these flawed, complex men -- and their wives, families, friends and foes. Never have we had a more intimate, behind-the-scenes view of Presidents coping with the supreme dilemmas of their lives. You will be in the room with the private George Washington, braving threats of impeachment and assassination to make peace with England. John Adams, incurring his party's "unrelenting hatred" by refusing to fight France and warning his enemies, "Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war." Andrew Jackson, in a death struggle against the corrupt Bank of the United States. Abraham Lincoln, risking his Presidency to insist that slaves be freed. Beschloss also shows us Theodore Roosevelt, taunting J. P. Morgan and the Wall Street leaders who dominated his party. Franklin Roosevelt, defying the isolationists -- and maybe the law -- to stop Adolf Hitler. Harry Truman, risking a walkout by top officials to recognize a Jewish state. John Kennedy, the belated champion of civil rights, complaining that he has cost himself a second term. And finally, two hundred years after Washington, Ronald Reagan, irking some of his oldest backers to seek an end to the Cold War. As Beschloss shows in this gripping and important book, none of these Presidents was eager to incur ridicule, vilification or threats of political destruction and even assassination. But in the end, bolstered by friends and family, hidden private beliefs and, sometimes, religious faith, each ultimately proved himself to be, in Andrew Jackson's words, "born for the storm."
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
ISBN-10
1416539824
ISBN-13
9781416539827
eBay Product ID (ePID)
122234068
Product Key Features
Book Title
Presidential Courage : Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989
Author
Michael R. Beschloss
Format
eBook
Language
English
Topic
Military / United States, General, International Relations / General, Presidents & Heads of State, American Government / General, United States / General
Publication Year
2007
Genre
Biography & Autobiography, Psychology, History, Political Science
Number of Pages
400 Pages
Additional Product Features
Reviews
"Michael Beschloss...is clearly the most widely recognized Presidential historian in the nation.... Most Presidential historians...content themselves with writing biographies of individual Presidents.... And Beschloss has done that too.... But if any book can be said to epitomize the genre of Presidential history, Presidential Courage does." -- Mary Beth Norton, The New York Times Book Review, "Michael Beschloss...is clearly the most widely recognized Presidential historian in the nation.... Most Presidential historians...content themselves with writing biographies of individual Presidents.... And Beschloss has done that too.... But if any book can be said to epitomize the genre of Presidential history,Presidential Couragedoes."-- Mary Beth Norton,The New York Times Book Review