Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War

Signing Their Lives Away

Denise Kiernan, Joseph D'Agnese · 271 pages

Introduces readers to the lives of the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence, describing who they were, their professions, and how their lives changed in the years that followed.

Chasing Lincoln's Killer

James L. Swanson · 197 pages

Based on rare archival material, obscure trial manuscripts, and interviews with relatives of the conspirators and the manhunters, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER is a fast-paced thriller about the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth: a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia. "This story is true. All the characte

Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell

A tour of key historic sites in America where incidents of political violence have occurred reveals lesser-known points of interest pertaining to each and shares information about how history has been shaped by popular culture and tourism.

My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams

Abigail Adams, John Adams · 528 pages

A collection of letters between Abigail and John Adams written from 1762 to 1801 covering topics of revolution, independence, and nation building, along with those that reflect their love for one another.

Lincoln's Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

Bill O'Reilly, Dwight Jon Zimmerman

Lincoln: A Photobiography

Russell Freedman · 150 pages

Photographs and text trace the life of the Civil War President.

Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

Matthew Algeo · 262 pages

From Missouri to New York and back again, this recounting of an amazing journey chronicles the road trip of a former president and his wife and their amusing, failed attempts to keep a low profile. Diners, bellhops, and cabbies shouted out “Hiya, Harry!” whenever they recognized the former president, and, out for his daily constitutional on the streets of New York, Harry even stumbled into the sid

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Joseph J. Ellis · 304 pages

In this landmark work of history, the National Book Award--winning author of American Sphinx explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals--Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison--confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation.The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade

First Ladies: An Intimate Group Portrait of White House Wives

Margaret Truman · 376 pages

This well-informed, intimate look at 29 women whose lives were intertwined with those who lead and have led this country presents forthright interviews with Lady Bird Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, and others, while warmly recalling Pat Nixon and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Ms. Truman's legendary frankness is present but so, too, is a generosity of spirit. Photos throughout.From the Hardc

Dead Presidents: An American Adventure into the Strange Deaths and Surprising Afterlives of Our Nation's Leaders

Brady Carlson · 336 pages

In *Dead Presidents*, NPR host Brady Carlson takes listeners to presidential gravesites, monuments, and memorials to tell the death stories of our greatest leaders. Mixing biography and travelogue, Carlson explores whether William Henry Harrison really died of a cold, why Zachary Taylor's remains were exhumed 140 years after his death, and how what killed James A. Garfield wasn't an assassin's bul

The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War

H.W. Brands · 480 pages

"From master storyteller and historian H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world. When asked by a reporter about t

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"--

Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot

Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard · 325 pages

In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. Along the way he acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Alan Dulles, director of the Central Intelligenc

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Candice Millard · 494 pages

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked

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

The Kennedy Brothers : The Rise and Fall of Jack and Bobby

Richard D. Mahoney · 488 pages

A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons

Elizabeth Dowling Taylor · 316 pages

Chronicles the life of a former slave to James and Dolley Madison, tracing his early years on their plantation, his service in the White House household staff and post-emancipation achievements as a memoirist.

The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary

Candace Fleming · 177 pages

Though Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's backgrounds differed considerably, both were intellectuals who shared interests in literature and politics, as well as a great love for each other.

Jefferson and the Rights of Man

Dumas Malone · 523 pages

Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

Jon Meacham · 518 pages

The Real George Washington

Jay A. Parry, Andrew M. Allison, W. Cleon Skousen

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

Doris Kearns Goodwin · 759 pages

From the best-selling author of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream comes a compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. Presenting an aspect of American history that has never been fully told, Doris Kearns Goodwin writes a brilliant narrative account of how the United States of 1940, an isolationist cou

An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America

Henry Wiencek · 404 pages

When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born an

Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House

Sally Bedell Smith · 608 pages

Drawing on interviews with Kennedy intimates, as well as newly available personal documents, a study of America's most storied presidency reveals the personalities and relationships that molded the politics, culture, and style of an era.