George Washington

First Family: Abigail and John Adams

Joseph J. Ellis · 299 pages

John and Abigail Adams left a remarkable portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence: both were prolific letter writers (although John conceded that Abigail was the more gifted), and over the years they exchanged more than twelve hundred letters. Joseph J. Ellis distills them to give us an account both intimate and panoramic; part biography, part political history, and part l

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Walter Isaacson · 599 pages

Chronicles the founding father's life and his multiple careers as a shopkeeper, writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, business strategist, and political leader, while showing how his faith in the wisdom of the common citizen helped forge an American national identity based on the virtues of its middle class.

John Adams

David McCullough · 751 pages

In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but

The Great Little Madison

Jean Fritz · 159 pages

Traces the life and contributions of the sickly child with the small voice who grew up to become the fourth president of the United States.

Washington: A Life

Ron Chernow · 928 pages

In this work, the author, a biographer provides a portrait of the father of our nation, dashing forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man, and revealing an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people.

Thomas Jefferson

R.B. Bernstein

Washington: The Indispensable Man

James Thomas Flexner · 425 pages

A "distillation" of the author's fourvolume work on the life of the first president of the United States.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different

Gordon S. Wood · 321 pages

A series of studies of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers. Each life is considered in the round, but the thread that binds the work together is the idea of character as a lived reality for these men. For these were men, Wood shows, who took the matter of character very seriously. They were the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made, men who considered the

James Madison: A Biography

Ralph Louis Ketcham · 753 pages

John Quincy Adams

Harlow Giles Unger · 384 pages

Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson · 110 pages

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

Cokie Roberts · 359 pages

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts comes New York Times bestseller Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families–and their country–proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it. While much has been written about the men who sign

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr

Nancy Isenberg · 540 pages

This definitive biography of the revolutionary era villain overturns every myth and image we have of him. The narrative of America's founding is filled with godlike geniuses—Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson—versus the villainous Aaron Burr. Generations have been told Burr was a betrayer—of Hamilton, of his country, of those who had nobler ideas. All untrue. He did not turn on Hamilton; rathe

The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

H.W. Brands · 784 pages

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

Edmund Morris · 886 pages

Biography of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, detailing his life from birth (1858) to his ascendancy to the Presidency (1901). This is the first book in Edmund Morris's trilogy on Roosevelt (followed by *Theodore Rex* and *Colonel Roosevelt*). It won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Bibliography or Autobiography and the 1980 National Book Award in Biography.

Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness

Joshua Wolf Shenk · 359 pages

Drawing on seven years of his own research and the work of other esteemed Lincoln scholars, Shenk reveals how the sixteenth president harnessed his depression to fuel his astonishing success. Lincoln found the solace and tactics he needed to deal with the nation’s worst crisis in the �coping strategies” he had developed over a lifetime of persevering through depressive episodes and personal tra

Coolidge

Amity Shlaes · 565 pages

From the Publisher... Amity Shlaes chronicles a riveting portrait of a great American president, Calvin Coolidge, who served in office in the 1920s. He was known to many as "Silent Cal" and to some as "Scrooge." His personality portrayed a quiet, passive man, old fashioned, but the most modern of all presidents. His discipline represented strength, and he was admired for his courage. From the g

Grant: A Biography

William S. McFeely · 608 pages

The story of the Ohioan who became the leader of the Union Army and later the president.

American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

Ronald C. White Jr. · 845 pages

In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the "Trinity of Great American Leaders." But the battlefield commander–turned–commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the twentieth century. In American Ulysses, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the twenty-first. Based on seven years of research with prim

Nixon Volume #1: The Education of a Politician, 1913-62

Stephen E. Ambrose · 752 pages

This is volume one of a biography of one of the most elusive and intriguing American political figures, Richard M.Nixon, covering his life from birth through 1962.

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

James M. McPherson · 340 pages

James McPherson, a bestselling historian of the Civil War, illuminates how Lincoln worked with—and often against— his senior commanders to defeat the Confederacy and create the role of commander in chief as we know it. Though Abraham Lincoln arrived at the White House with no previous military experience (apart from a couple of months spent soldiering in 1832), he quickly established himself as th

Martin Van Buren

Ted Widmer, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. · 208 pages

Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir

Clint Hill, Lisa McCubbin · 343 pages

"For four years, from the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1960 until after the election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent assigned to guard the glamorous and intensely private Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. During those four years, he went from being a reluctant guardian to a fiercely loyal watchdog and, in many ways, her closest friend"--

Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Kenneth P. O'Donnell · 434 pages

The two devoted Kennedy aides provide a warm portrait of the former president drawn from their fifteen years in his service.