Table of Contents
A Note to Readers on Style xiii
Our Special Contributors xv
Introduction Susan Swain xvii
The Magnificent Lion Richard Norton Smith 1
A Brief History of Presidential Rankings Douglas Brinkley 10
The Top Ten
1 Abraham Lincoln Harold Holzer 21
2 George Washington Ron Chernow 34
3 FrankHn D. Roosevelt Doris Kearns Goodwin 47
4 Theodore Roosevelt Douglas Brinkley 59
5 Dwight D. Eisenhower William I. Hitchcock 70
6 Harry S. Truman Aida D. Donald 81
7 Thomas Jefferson Willard Sterne Randall 93
8 John F. Kennedy Robert Dallek 105
9 Ronald Reagan Lou Cannon 114
10 Lyndon B. Johnson Robert A. Caro 126
…The Men in the Middle
11 Woodrow Wilson A. Scott Berg 139
12 Barack Obama David J. Garrow 150
13 James Monroe John Ferling 162
14 James K. Polk John Seigenthaler 171
15 William J. Clinton David Maraniss 181
16 William McKinley Robert W. Merry 192
17 James Madison Noah Feldman 203
18 Andrew Jackson Mark R. Cheathem 215
19 John Adams Gordon S. Wood 226
20 George H.W. Bush Jeffrey A. Engel 235
21 John Quincy Adams James Traub 247
22 Ulysses S. Grant Ronald C. White 259
23 Grover Cleveland H. Paul Jeffers 269
24 William Howard Taft Jeffrey Rosen 280
25 Gerald R. Ford James Cannon 291
26 Jimmy Carter Michael J. Gerhardt 302
27 Calvin Coolidge Amity Shlaes 311
28 Richard M. Nixon Evan Thomas 322
29 James A. Garfield Kenneth D. Ackerman 333
30 Benjamin Harrison Charles W. Calhoun 344
31 Zachary Taylor Elbert B. Smith 355
32 Rutherford B. Hayes Art Hoogenboom 364
33 George W. Bush James Mann 374
…And All the Rest
34 Martin Van Buren Michael Douglas Henderson 389
35 Chester A. Arthur Scott S. Greenberger 399
36 Herbert Hoover Richard Norton Smith 407
37 Millard Fillmore Edna Greene Medford 419
38 William Henry Harrison Ronald G. Shafer 426
39 John Tyler Edward P. Crapol 436
40 Warren G. Harding John W. Dean 443
41 Franklin Pierce Peter A. Wallner 454
42 Andrew Johnson David O. Stewart 464
43 James Buchanan Robert Strauss 475
Historians' Perspectives on President Donald J. Trump Douglas Brinkley Edna Greene Medford Richard Norton Smith 485
Postscript: The Presidency, National identity, and the Pursuit of Equal Justice Edna Greene Medford 497
Appendix I Historians' Survey on Presidential Leadership, Total Scores and Overall Rankings 503
Appendix II US Presidents in Chronological Order 505
Complete List of Featured Books 507
Acknowledgments 511
Index 513