Presidents Books

"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself." -Anais Nin (1903-1977)

Being a First Lady is undeniably challenging. Here, you will meet forty-four dynamic women who made their mark on the White House and the nation. In an "eyewitness" format, this guide explores their lives through stunning full-color photographs and brief summaries of their lives.

You will soon gain a new respect for women who were willing to give up a simpler and less stressful existence to serve our nation.

Find out how Martha Washington risked her life to travel thousands of miles from the comfort and security of her home to visit General Washington at his field headquarters and how she tended to the sick and even helped mend uniforms.

See how calmly Dolley Madison handled the looting and burning of Washington and calmly kept her head in a crisis when having to relocate to temporary quarters.

Through the ages, you see how the President's wives took more and more responsibilities and encouraged their husband's success.

I also enjoyed all the pictures of the trinkets, designer gowns, campaign memorabilia, gifts and jewelry.

A visual journey of the evolution of women in America.

There is no box
made by God
nor us
But that the sides
can be flattened
and the top blown off
to make a dance floor
on which to
celebrate life.
- Kenneth Caraway

~The Rebecca Review

First Ladies have always interested me, and I thought this Eyewitness book was a wonderful book on the topic. It has a page or two on every First Lady since Martha Washington-maybe more if the First Lady was extremely popular. Good photographs of the First Ladies themselves, as well as their clothing and possessions, enhance the well-written text. The text not only focuses on the bare facts of each lady's life, but includes interesting facts and "personality sketches." "Eyewitness: First Ladies" taught me about many first ladies that I had never even heard of before, and it is a "must" for anyone interested in the topic.

It's an engaging and disarming book about a person I assume to be a largely unsung visionary in the formation of one of our nation's most influential cities/regions. It's remarkable as both a reminder of how dramatically Los Angeles changed in the 20th Century, and as a reminder of how much personal histories (of the kind you may not find in your history text book) can play an invaluable role in shedding light on the people and factors that truly shape our world. The book is a clearly written account of Blanchard's ability to dream bigger than himself and have the fortitude and drive to actually turn his ideas into realities. And it's written with enough personal insight and human touch that it makes you believe just maybe you can do the same!

This is an interesting book about one of the early pioneers in Los Angeles. The photos were fascinating, especially the ones of the Blanchard family estate homes located at Barham and Cahuenga. It's hard to believe there was a time when that area of Hollywood (now Universal City) was completely undeveloped except for those two grand mansions on the hill. This is a great book for readers interested in the civic and cultural activities in LA during the early 1900s. Fred Blanchard's contributions were impressive. I enjoyed the book. It was an easy read, the photos are great and I would definitely recommend it.

In this year of presidential campaigns I discovered this tome at the library & decided it was time I knew something about all the men who have held this rarified office. Filled with exacting & infinite details about their ages, occupations, ancestries, families plus the highlights of their terms, this is one useful, interesting & thoughtful reference book.

This is an amazing collection of facts on U.S. Presidents. Practically anything you ever wanted to know about the Presidents is in this book. A must-read! I recommend it to anyone, especially a presidential buff.

The way Jane, the author, brought the woman of Proverbs 31 to life through the lives of the first ladies was unexpected and fascinating. I loved how Jane weaved each story into the next story. I was so impressed with this book I bought a copy for each of my three nieces. Not only will this book give them more insight into our country's history, but more importantly, it will also teach them what it means to be a woman of noble character.

Having been interviewed for this book by Mrs. Cook, I was intrigued by her topic of combining the Prov. 31 woman with stories of America's First Ladies. I was thrilled upon reading the book to find it a tremendous source of information and inspiration. Mrs. Cook's stories of the First Ladies were a delight to read, and I looked forward to the start of each new chapter, waiting to see what scene she would paint for me to be able to envision some touching moments in the lives of these women. Each chapter then develops into a wonderfully readable and enjoyable collection of Scripture applications, interviews and fascinating personal stories. An excellent book!

Excellent for car rides, filling time between other activities, and mealtime discussions, this fandex is filled with colourful biographies and pictures of the famous First Ladies who were more than merely the accompaniment to their presidential husbands. The articles inside this fandex provide role models for young girls and inspiration to try new things.

I bought this for my 9-yr. old daughter who likes Fandexes and took an interest in history when we started collecting the White House ornaments. This is a great way to learn interesting facts about the first ladies, especially since they are usually lost in history books. I think it is a wonderful way for my daughter to see the importance of women in history and the varied roles the first ladies took-some wives and mothers, some career-oriented, some champions of important causes. I have also learned many things from the Fandex. It is also small so it's nice to take on trips or bring in the car to conquer boredom!

Frankiln Roosevelt is most often thought of as the President that led the United States most of the way through World War II. In this book, Alsop takes a different approach to capturing FDR's life. While Alsop sees his book as a memoir of his interactions with FDR, it rarely comes off that way. The fact that it feels so much like a biography makes Alsop's commentary annoying at times.

Many of the pictures in the book are treasures that are only in the possession of the Roosevelt family. That in itself, makes this book worth the price. Many of this photos show how physically fragile the president was near the end of his life. Many of the stories in this book are ommitted from history books, but are certainly worth knowing. One example is the story of Roosevelt trying to add most justices to the Supreme Court in order to get them to vote to his liking.

My one problem with the book is its concise nature. Based on the small number of pages, much of FDR's life is not documented. Alsop arrogantly negelcts some facts, such as the onset of FDR's polio, because he believes they are common knowledge. However, the format and photographs compensate for this omission.

A beautifully produced (and large size) history/reference of FDR. It gives a solid general overview of his life and career, but the best feature has to be the large photos throughout (be sure to consider getting the more sturdy hardbound edition)...

I would like to inform the writers of this book that a "republic" according to the dictionary is a country where the "president" has been elected by voters, by the people, that is. There has not been a public vote in Cuba for 38 years. The people have not elected Fidel Castro as their president. He elected himself so I strongly suggest that you change the title of the book. You are maliciously and with felonious intent subverting the meaning of "republic" and "president" and I do resent calling Fidel what he is not.

This book was wonderfully well-written and I am not just saying that because one of the authors, Jeff M. Elliot, is my Pol. Sci. professors!! In, response to the last review by "A Reader" - You need to get over yourself!! The use of "Persident" and "Republic" is NOT being used subversively - GET A LIFE!!! It was a wonderful look at Castro's Presidency!!!

Fidel Castro remains one of the dominant political figures of all time, certainly the most controversial and impactful political leader Latin America produced in the 20th century. The Cuban Revolution was an important moment in the history of the Americas, one can easily see it's influence in later movements such as the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Salvador Allende in Chile and in our own time Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia. "Fidel: My Early Years" is a great collection of material where Castro himself discusses his youth from his childhood in Cuba to his student years up to the time right before the revolution. Political and history students must read this volume which gives a clear insight into the vast intellect and powerful speaking skills of Castro. Colombian Nobel-Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez opens the book with a wonderful essay where he describes his long-time friend and his eccentricities, sleepless working hours, voracious reading habits, passions, angers and hopes. Marquez with true eloquence captures a giant of revolutionary movements. Excerpts from major works such as "Fidel & Religion" are featured where Castro discusses his religious upbringing (mostly from his mother) and the poverty and suffering Cuba's campesinos and blacks suffered under U.S. imperialism. He also makes a point of supporting Haiti, which has also been ravaged by colonial abuse. There are fascinating moments such as Castro's discussions of his time in Colombia where he witnessed the political upheaval resulting from the assasination of the reformist Gaitan who Castro (and many others) suspect was assassinated in a plot hatched by Colombia's elites. The beauty of "Fidel My Early Years" is that we get a true human portrait of a man reduced to the level of slogans, cartoons and demonization by the American press, here we get his actual words and ideas. What we see is a man with an amazing capacity for recording facts, figures, thoughts, philosophies and a brilliant sense of calculation and observation and an appreciation for history. Fidel Castro has already left his imprint on Latin American and world history, but for many in the U.S. he remains a distant, threatening figure, here you get a chance at listening to the actual words because listening is a habit we really lack and very much need in the current world state.

This book consists of one lengthy speech that El Commandante favored students with at his alma matter, the University of Havanna law school in 1995, and a few long interviews, including his famous 1985 interview with the Brazilian priest, Frei Betto. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has a very good introductory essay, with some personal reflection on his buddy Fidel.

If you are a good right thinking American, you probably consider Fidel Castro an evil dictator, even though most Americans the polls show, favor a lifting of the embargo. Well whether you consider him a monster, a somewhat brutal benign dictator (as I do) or as a holy saint (as Fidel hints he thinks himself at some points in this collection), this book is a fine piece of literature. Fidel is a first rate storyteller, he evokes the images of his life in a simple and clear style and is able to impart to the reader the rather inspiring gusto and confidence with which he went about life in his early years.

Cuba pre-1959 was a very wealthy country and put up some good numbers but most of the wealth was concentrated in the hands of an indiginous elite, significantly tied to American investors. Once the United States grabbed Cuba after 1898, much of the land was handed off cheaply to U.S. investors. Castro describes how his father was an extremely poor Spanish immigrant who arrived in Cuba in the late 1890's as a soldier in the Spanish army that was barbarically trying to repress the Cuban independence movement. His father, Angel, over the years managed by his own enterprize to eventually become a pretty successful landowner out in the sticks of Oriente Province. His mother, a native Cuban, also was extremely poor growing up. His father eventually came to employ a large number of workers in his sugar fields, including some Hatians. He grew up playing with the children of these workers and never was aware of any class distinctions between him and his mates, or so he says. The Haitians, Fidel says, he used socialise with in their mud and thatch dwellings. The workers lived an extremely hard and impoverished life, but these Hatians had the hardest lot of all.

In the 1933 revolution against the dictator Machado, Hatian migrant workers were expelled on the ground that they were taking jobs away from Cubans. Included in this expulsion was the Hatian Consul General at Santiago De Cuba, a mulatto who became Fidel's godfather. As a four, five or six year old Fidel spent some time during the Great Depression in Santiago, as a student in the home of an impoverished teacher and got his first taste of real poverty. The Great Depression years in Cuba made the same period in the U.S. look rather mild by comparison. Many people starved to death. When it set up its neocolonial rule over Cuba in 1902, the U.S. also set up a military contigent called the Rural Guards, which terrorized the peasants. Fidel reminisces how in the elections of 1940, when he was back home, he was assigned the task of visiting the homes of the illiterate workers around Angel's estate and others in the area, explaining to them how to vote for his step-brother as a parliamentary canidate for the Autentico party. The workers on estates ussually voted for whoever their boss told them to vote for. Fidel says he remembers the Rural Gurads terrorizing the peasant voters at the voting booth, making sure that the peasants understood that they had to vote in that election for Bautista and his associates.

He spent his school years in various private Catholic institutions and had a few notable bouts with the authorities after he recieved physical punishment. He remarks that at one point he felt compelled to ask at of curiousity why there were no students of color at these institutions. People of color, of course, in Cuba before 1959, suffered Jim Crow style discrimination. At Jesuit schools in Santiago and Havanna, he, with no false modesty, describes that the priests were deeply impressed with his extraordinary gifts in intellectual fields as well as in sports. Just about everyone of these Jesuits had been a supporter of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, but nonetheless, he says, he grew close to many of them and deeply admired their austere spirit, their willingness to sacrafice for their students even though they didn't recieve any salary.

His life took a dramatic turn when he entered the University of Havanna Law School in 1945 at the age of 19. In 1944, Ramon Grau San Martin, was elected President. Grau had been a leader in the short lived government of 1933 that tried to enact social democratic measures but was overthrown with U.S. backing by Bautista. Grau and his Autentico party had forgotten their revolutionary roots by this time and devoted the next eight years mainly to murdering their opponents and each other, and embezzling government money at a really astounding level. The Autenticos controlled the administration of the University of Havanna and used gang violence against their opposition. Fidel threw himself into this mess, gradualling setting himself up as the leading student opponent of the Autenticos. He describes one instance, when apparently his struggle with the Autentico gangsters had reached such a point that they were going to kill him if he kept opposing them, he went to the beach and cried. He resolved while he was thus wiping away the tears that he would go back to campus life and face whatever came his way. Actually I think that he probably used the connection of his father-in- law, the United Fruit company lawyer, Rafael Diaz Bilart, to fly to the United States, after there was a bounty on his head by some Autentico gangs for allegedly planning to kill one of their leaders. I'm not sure. Ann Louise Bardach's book "Cuba Confidential" is a really fine book that explores these matters about CAstro's life. Maybe this incident after the killing of the gang leader took place later, I can't remember. Certainly, the people who told such a story to Bardach had a motive to strech the truth.

In any case, Fidel aligned himself with the most progressive forces in Cuban society. He joined the Orthodox party under the leadership of Eddie Chibas, and became the leader of that party's left wing. The Orthodox party wanted to eliminate the extreme corruption that had been an endemic part of Cuban life since 1902 and create a government that respected civil liberties, but it was in favor of keeping the capitalist system. Castro explains that he was really worried about the party because it was being co-opted by big landowners and being dilluted of its principles.

Castro was a leader of the Havanna University organization in solidarity with opponents of the barbaric U.S. backed dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo. He joined a boat expedition in 1947 that aimed to land in the DR and start a guerilla war but the boat was stopped by the Cuban military as it went out to sea and its occupants were arrested but Castro jumped out the boat and swam to safety before they could get their hands on him. This expedition had been originally funded by the most corrupt minister in the Grau government, Julian Aleman, but some of the latter's rivals in the military called off the expedition after a couple of Autentico gangs massacred each other.

Castro's description of his involvement in the mass uprising in Bogota, Colombia after the assasination of Jorge Gaitan in April 1948 is really extraordinary. He is a first rate story teller as I've said. What is probably most remarkable about this section is how Castro explains, with no false modesty, repeatedly that it was his own extraordary courage and selflessnes that got him through that difficult period, as he tried to organize the people. He led a detachment of revoltees and tried to encourage a mutinous police station, to go on the offensive. No doubt the murder of Gaitan played a role in convincing Castro as did the U.S. backed coup in Guatemala in 1954 for Che Cuevara, that one cannot affect social change for the poor without having the oligarchy or the CIA kill you. Castro had been in Bogota as the leader of a Pan Latin American conference which was supposed to serve as a forum for Latin American students to unite to oppose the British occupation of the Falklands, U.S. control of the Panamma Canal and Puerto Rico and other such banal nationalist issues.

The idea that there is anything admirable whatsoever in Fidel Castro is likey incomprehensible to the average American, who rarely hears any notion in the corporate media that U.S. policy and U.S. foreign investors have served as a deciding factor in keeping the masses of Latin America in extreme poverty and misery. Few Americans, except those in Florida in a mostly positive way, have ever heard of Luis Posada Carilles or Orlando Bosch.

This is a fine piece of literature.

I thought I understood the American Civil War and its role in ending slavery in America, but "Final Freedom" goes far beyond what most history books have to say on the subject. The issue of slavery was an enormously complex one, and bringing it to an end was a process that took decades, perhaps even centuries. Vorenberg's treatment of attitudes towards the Constitution was a revelation to me. Many of those in political power regarded changing the Constitution the way a fundamentalist would think of changing the Bible. How that attitude was overcome is a fascinating journey which follows many paths.

This extraordinary and wonderfully written work will change the way that historians view slavery's demise. Previous accounts of the Thirteenth Amendment have depicted its coming as a natural consequence of the Civil War -- a way to make final the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation. Vorenberg shows us that the coming of the Thirteenth Amendment was not inevitable, explains how contingency influenced its development, and reveals the different reasons why Republicans, Democrats, and border state Unionists supported the Amendment.

Amending the Constitution to end slavery was only one of several ways that Americans considered. Vorenberg explains that antebellum Americans were extremely reluctant to revise their Constitution, and even many Republicans regarded constitutional revision to end slavery as too radical. The Civil War's persistence and bloodiness caused many to change their minds, and adopt the Democrats' position of unlimited amending power. Although many historians and legal scholars have downplayed the Thirteenth Amendment's significance, Vorenberg informs us that this amendment marked the beginning of Americans' using constitutional amendments as instruments of social reform. Further, in the years following the Thirteenth Amendment's ratification, Radical Republicans understood it to be the foundation of federal legislation on behalf of African Americans.

This book is well researched, extensively documented, and informed on many historiographical issues. It will benefit both general readers and specialists, and force textbook authors to revise their accounts regarding the end of slavery.

. . . read this book first! My interest was piqued when I saw a book review by the author on TV. Her research was extensive and carefully documented. She spoke to both Hillary's supporters and retractors and quoted both personal interviews and published reports. The book was both a page turner and a head shaker. If you want to find the epitome of the "snake oil salesman" look no further than Hillary and Bill! Sleazy backroom deals and downright dishonesty are all part of their political game.

Sally Bedell Smith's For the Love of Politics makes for insightful and prescient reading for those seeking to understand Hillary Clinton's 2007-2008 presidential campaign and to anticipate the possibility of a Hillary Clinton-led White House.

Bedell Smith ably chronicles the eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency, making a compelling case that Hillary Clinton played a strong and ongoing role in her husband's policymaking. While Hillary Clinton's involvement in West Wing events appears to have ranged from overt (during the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency) to covert (particularly during the 1995-96 re-election bid), Hillary Clinton appears to have been a prominent influence in her husband's presidential decision-making process. Bedell Smith's account also suggests that Hillary Clinton, as First Lady, was frequently more tough-minded and partisan than her husband, who was more likely to take a conciliatory stance toward his opponents. At the same time, Bedell Smith's reporting indicates that the Clintons' relationship is centered on the political process and on policymaking and concludes that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be shaped by both Clintons, much as Bill Clinton's presidency was.

Especially interesting in Bedell Smith's account are foreshadowings of some of the events of Senator Clinton's Senate career and 2007-2008 campaign:
--Hillary Clinton's 2000 New York Senate campaign highlights Clinton's expertise on policy issues, a decision driven by polling results suggesting that the "personality negatives" perceived by voters can be overcome only by emphasizing her experience. The 2008 presidential campaign has been run on the same premise.
--Bill Clinton's attempts as president to dislodge Saddam Hussein from power foreshadow Hillary Clinton's 2002 support for the invasion of Iraq, and her reluctance to embrace an antiwar stance.
--A successful call for a gasoline tax during Bill Clinton's presidency foreshadows Hillary Clinton's embrace of this approach in the spring of 2008.
--The Clintons' single-minded commitment to Hillary's 2000 race for the Senate to the detriment of Al Gore's presidential candidacy has a similar flavor to the Clintons' pursuit of the 2008 presidential nomination at the possible expense of Democratic Party unity and victory in November 2008.

In sum, Bedell Smith describes a talented, flawed and hard-driving political couple whose personal and political ambitions are pursued at all costs. The sense of shared legacy looms large. Bedell Smith's narrative suggests shared disappointment at the lost opportunities of a Bill Clinton presidency undermined by a bitterly partisan political environment, GOP dominance in Congress, and the Lewinsky affair. The Clintons' mutual disappointment at the defeats suffered during Bill Clinton's White House years, the mutual desire for a second chance at the presidency, and the shared need to strengthen a fragile legacy appear to shape Hillary Clinton's tenacious 2008 run for the White House.

All told, Bedell Smith has created a fair, balanced and compelling look at the Clintons. For the Love of Politics should be required reading for those seeking to understand the Clintons' marital and political partnership.