As standard bearer of the Progressive Party in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt played to enthusiastic crowds wherever he traveled. When he was targeted by an assassin while campaigning for president, a bullet passed through the speech in his breast pocket-pages that he then held aloft while assuring the crowd "It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose . . . and you cannot escape listening to this speech "

This first full edition of his campaign speeches takes readers on the stump from New England to California, collecting thirty-five texts largely overlooked since they were first delivered....

The only president to later serve as chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft remarked in the 1920s that "I don't remember that I ever was President." Historians have agreed, and Taft is usually portrayed, when written about at all, as nothing more than a failed chief executive. In this provocative new study, the first treatment of the Taft presidency in four decades, Lewis L. Gould presents a compelling assessment of Taft's accomplishments and setbacks in office. Rich in human interest and fresh analysis of the events of Taft's four years in Washington, Gould's book shows why...

When the first edition of this book appeared in 2003, it was chosen as a Main Selection of both the Book-of-the-Month Club and History Book Club and quickly became the standard work on the modern American presidency--from William McKinley through William Jefferson Clinton. In that original edition, Lewis L. Gould argued that, while the president may be the most powerful man in the world, most presidents have fallen well short of the daunting challenges that confronted them while in office.

During George W. Bush's two administrations, as Gould discusses in a substantial new chapter, those...

When the first edition of this book appeared in 2003, it was chosen as a Main Selection of both the Book-of-the-Month Club and History Book Club and quickly became the standard work on the modern American presidency--from William McKinley through William Jefferson Clinton. In that original edition, Lewis L. Gould argued that, while the president may be the most powerful man in the world, most presidents have fallen well short of the daunting challenges that confronted them while in office.

During George W. Bush's two administrations, as Gould discusses in a substantial new chapter, those...

Alexander Terrell's career placed him at the center of some of the most pivotal events in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history, ranging from the Civil War to Emperor Maximilian's reign over Mexico and an Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire. Alexander Watkins Terrell at last provides the first complete biographical portrait of this complex figure.

Born in Virginia in 1827, Terrell moved to Texas in 1852, rising to the rank of Confederate brigadier general when the Civil War erupted. Afterwards, he briefly served in Maximilian's army before returning to...

The race for the White House in 1968 was a watershed event in American politics. In this brilliantly succinct narrative analysis, Lewis Gould shows how the events of that tumultuous year changed the way Americans felt about politics and their national leaders. Bitterness over racial issues and the Vietnam War that marked the 1968 election continued to shape national affairs and to rile American society for years afterward. And the election accelerated an erosion of confidence in American institutions that has not yet reached a conclusion. In his lucid account, now revised and updated, Mr....

In this fascinating study, Lewis L. Gould has brought a shadowy first lady into the light and restored her to a rightful place as a patron of music. Helen Herron Taft came to the White House intent on establishing Washington, D.C., as the nation's cultural capital. A stroke in May 1909 made her a semi-invalid, impaired her speech, and disrupted her agenda. Historians have written her off as a shrewish figure who pushed her portly husband into the presidency.

Gould challenges this outdated narrative with new information on Helen Taft's campaign to bring the best of classical music to the...

First published in 1991, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt has won acclaim as a lucid and thorough narrative of Roosevelt's two terms in the White House. Reviewers praised the depth of Lewis L. Gould's research, his comprehensive coverage of major aspects of Roosevelt's tenure, and the persuasiveness of his conclusions about his subject's personalized presidency. Writing in Reviews in American History, Willard Gatewood called the book "essential reading for all who wish to understand the complex, charismatic, and perennially fascinating political figure that was Theodore...

First published in 1991, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt has won acclaim as a lucid and thorough narrative of Roosevelt's two terms in the White House. Reviewers praised the depth of Lewis L. Gould's research, his comprehensive coverage of major aspects of Roosevelt's tenure, and the persuasiveness of his conclusions about his subject's personalized presidency. Writing in Reviews in American History, Willard Gatewood called the book "essential reading for all who wish to understand the complex, charismatic, and perennially fascinating political figure that was Theodore...

Few presidential couples enjoyed a closer relationship in the White House than Will and Nellie Taft. Throughout William Howard Taft's rise in American politics, she had been his most intimate confidant. When circumstances separated them, as when Helen Herron Taft became incapacitated by a stroke and was unable to accompany the president on his storied travels--or was herself on recuperative trips--she pressed him for letters, and he obliged with gossipy correspondence that provides a fascinating account of his presidency at decisive moments in his single term.

These 113 letters, all but a...