Presidents' Day

"In this sweepingly ambitious volume, the nation's foremost experts on the American presidency and the U.S. Constitution join together to tell the intertwined stories of how each American president has confronted and shaped the Constitution. Each occupant of the office--the first president to the forty-fourth--has contributed to the story of the Constitution through the decisions he made and the actions he took as the nation's chief executive. By...

"Perhaps the most significant meals in the world have been consumed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by the presumptive leaders of the free world. Thomas Jefferson had an affinity for eggplant and FDR for terrapin stew. Nixon ate a lump of cottage cheese topped with barbecue sauce every day and Obama regularly had arugula. Now, Alex Prud'homme takes us to the dining tables of the White House to look at what the presidents chose to eat, how the food was...

"The most powerful political tool of the modern presidency is control of the message and the image. The Greeks called it 'rhetoric,' Gilded Age politicians called it 'publicity,' and some today might call it 'lying,' but spin is a built-in feature of American democracy. Presidents deploy it to engage, persuade, and mobilize the people--in whom power ultimately resides. Presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the development of the White House...

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November reflects on his seventeen years on the Secret Service for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.
The assassination of one president, the resignation of another, and the swearing-in of the two who followed those traumatic events. Clint Hill was there, on duty, through Five Presidents.

After an extraordinary...

Every president has had a unique and complicated relationship with the intelligence community. While some have been coolly distant, even adversarial, others have found their intelligence agencies to be among the most valuable instruments of policy and power.
Since John F. Kennedy's presidency, this relationship has been distilled into a personalized daily report: a short summary of what the intelligence apparatus considers the most crucial information...

"Imagine you have just been elected president. You are now commander-in-chief, chief executive, chief diplomat, chief legislator, chief of party, chief voice of the people, first responder, chief priest, and world leader. You're expected to fulfill your campaign promises, but you're also expected to solve the urgent crises of the day. What's on your to-do list? Where would you even start? The American presidency is in trouble. It has become overburdened,...

Examines presidential power within the context of U.S. history and the ongoing relationships presidents and ex-presidents formed with one another.