The rise, fall, and rebirth of Richard Nixon is perhaps the most fascinating story in American politics-and perhaps the most misunderstood. Nixon: A Life is the first entirely objective biography of Richard Nixon. Former British Defense Minister Jonathan Aitken conducted over sixty hours of interviews with the impeached former president and was granted unprecedented access to thousands of pages of Nixon's previously sealed private documents. Nixon...

Few US presidents have captured the imagination of the American people as has Harry S. Truman. In this biography, Robert H. Ferrell, widely regarded as an authority on the thirty-third president, challenges the popular characterization of Truman as a man who rarely sought the offices he received, revealing instead a man who-with modesty, commitment to service, and basic honesty-moved with method and system toward the presidency. No other historian...

In the American political system today, courage and the presidency are rarely spoken of in the same sentence. Forgotten is the wisdom of Andrew Jackson: "One man of courage makes a majority." Thomas J. Whalen's “A Higher Purpose” seeks to prove the truth behind Jackson's words by relating the stories of nine historic decisions made by commanders-in-chief over two centuries of American history. From Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to Theodore...

At the beginning of 1864, the Civil War was far from won; terrible and bloody Union setbacks and casualties lay ahead. Abraham Lincoln was facing a re-election battle as some northern Democrats were ready to start peace talks that could leave the Confederacy a separate slaveholding American nation and as his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, challenged him for the Republican nomination. But by the end of the year, the war's end was in sight,...

An irreverent look at Presidential foibles, follies, fibs, and moral failures. Were past presidents smarter, more honest, and better behaved that those we elect today? Don't bet on it! White House Confidential shows that commanders-in-chief have been lying, cheating, stealing, and womanizing from the days of the Founding Fathers. Focusing on the qualities that never made it into White House press releases, the authors look at their sexual misdeeds...

He was in fact an odd sort of general, being modest, tolerant, candid, peace-loving, suggestible and conciliatory to the point of weakness. He was an astonishing contrast to the flamboyant egotists, prima donnas to a man, who dominated the contemporary stage. He had the charisma of a film star yet he exuded self-effacing moderation and natural good sense. Ike was the epitome of the common man.-Piers Brendon Read Piers Brendon's insightful biography...

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. Rather than capture enemy territory or march on Southern cities, he concentrated on engaging and defeating the Confederate armies in the field, and he pursued that strategy relentlessly....

"A fine, invaluable book. . . . Certain to become essential to our understanding of the 16th president. . . . Kaplan meticulously analyzes how Lincoln's steadily maturing prose style enabled him to come to grips with slavery and, as his own views evolved, to express his deepening opposition to it." - Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World For Abraham Lincoln, whether he was composing love letters, speeches, or legal arguments, words mattered....

Professor Robert J. Rayback's history of Millard Fillmore is still the best biography of the 13th President of the United States. In one of the many unexplained, unfortunate quirks of history, most of the official papers of Fillmore's administration were destroyed by his son. Scholars have consequently been denied the source material which is so essential to examining and gaining insight into the underlying truth of a Presidency. Regarding Fillmore,...