Abraham Lincoln never said, "You cannot fool all the people all the time." Thomas Jefferson never said, "That government is best which governs least." And Horace Greeley never said, "Go west, young man." In They Never Said It, Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George examine hundreds of misquotations, incorrect attributions, and blatant fabrications, outlining the origins of the quotes and revealing why we should consign them to the historical trashcan.
Many of the misquotes are quite harmless. Some are inadvertent misquotes that have become popular (Shakespeare actually said, "The...

This is a collection of humorous stories about U.S. Presidents throughout history. Originally published in 1981, this edition is updated to include anecdotes on George Bush and Bill Clinton.

In sailing westward in 1492, did Columbus defy the prevailing belief that the Earth was flat? Was Thomas Paine an atheist? Was Truman plucked from obscurity to be FDR's running mate in 1944? Are presidential campaigns nowadays far dirtier than they were in the past? Is Hillary Clinton the most active or influential First Lady ever? Not so, says Paul Boller, in this delightfully informative look at some of the most common myths and misconceptions about the American past.
As he did in his bestselling They Never Said It, Boller provides us with a cornucopia of historical correction,...

In Presidential Wives, Paul Boller brings his gift for telling detail to bear on the women our Presidents married, and the result is a biographical feat--at once funny and poignant, dramatic and illuminating, covering every First Lady from Martha Washington to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Boller devotes a full chapter to each of his subjects, featuring an incisive biographical essay followed by a selection of revealing anecdotes. Through his portrayal of such a diverse group of women, Boller sheds new light on how much the institution of the presidency tells us about ourselves and our life as a...

During the heyday of McCarthyism, the "Chicago Tribune," offended by something he had written, contemptuously dismissed Paul Boller as "an obscure professor" - he was then teaching at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Some forty-five years later, reflecting on the incident, Boller wrote an essay on what it was like to be an obscure professor at one of America's less publicized campuses in a conservative community during the late 1950s and early 1960s. That essay became the foundation for this collection of autobiographical selections reflecting the interests and pursuits of a...