Herbert S. Parmet's Eisenhower and the American Crusades is a major assessment of the American presidency during the critical period of America at mid-century. The book follows the career of General Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1952, when he decided to leave his NATO command to campaign for the presidency, to his retirement at Gettysburg nearly nine years later. His entry into politics was well-timed. A mood of conservatism was sweeping the country; surveys indicated that the majority of Americans felt it was time for a change from two decades of executive control -by those who had...

In the first full biography of the former president, award-winning historian and biographer Herbert S. Parmet draws from George Bush's personal papers to look at the man who led America through the end of the Cold War. Enriched by access to Bush's private diaries, the book provides an intimate portrait of the forty-first president, and corrects many long-held misconceptions about him.

Parmet shows George Bush within the context of a half century of American life and politics, at a time when great changes swept the nation. Parmet traces Bush's life from his New England youth,...