Rubenstein is a private equity executive and apparently has access to interview some Presidential historians. The result is an interesting and easy reading commentary on various Presidents. The book is entertaining.
Jack D. Warren, Jr. on George Washington. I have never heard of Warren. This chapter is perhaps the least interesting in the book. There will always be new books on our first President, but really, is there anything new of great interest concerning George Washington?
"He was a great horseman, a fine dancer, and a gifted athlete." P. 6
"His formal education ended when he was about 14." P. 7
He was no less educated than Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry. P. 7
At peak he had about 35,000 soldiers to lead. P. 8
The British could take the cities but had trouble in the countryside. P. 9
Victories in Trenton and Princeton. P. 10
Washington: Will the Revolution be a blessing or a curse? Not just for now but for millions unborn.
Like other Founders, GW had a sense of history unfolding. P. 11
Jefferson never understood economics and finance like Hamilton. P. 19
Washington and Jefferson must not have parted on the best of terms in 1797. P. 20
David McCullough on John Adams.
Doesn't everybody like David McCullough, the journalism major from Columbia University?
His Truman book is perhaps the best Presidential biography that I have read.
The Adams bio is close behind.
Perhaps McCullough biography of John Adams did the most to revive interest in Adams.
It is obvious that McCullough is very fond of Adams. So am I.
"It is only when I sit down at the desk with a piece of paper and my pen that I can really start to think. At home thinking!" P. 31
"I discovered books and I read forever." P. 31
The ONLY Founder to never have owned a slave. P. 33
Taught himself French. Read a 16-volume history of France in French. Urges us to read poetry. P. 37
Not a morning person. Would swing into action around 11:30 in the morning.
Truman and Adams both had great courage. Willing to say what they thought. Willing to make decisions. Both knew they were a link in a great chain. The world did not being nor end with them. P. 44
Jon Meacham on Thomas Jefferson.
Like David McCullough, Meacham is one of our many non-historical journalists acting like an historian, a Tennesseean with a Southern drawl. I consider him a lightweight.
Meacham thinks more highly of Jefferson than I do.
Jefferson was our most intellectual President, which proves that being intellectual can be overrated. P. 46
I admire him more because I see his flaws. P. 49
Regarding the DOI, he meant white men. P. 51
The Founders and those young girls!
No doubt that he was the father of Sally's 6 children. P. 56
The three parts of the DOI. P. 57-58
Jefferson eventually gave up dealing with the slavery issue. P. 64
No, Mr. Meacham, Jefferson was NOT the dominant early American President.
Jefferson soaked his feel in cold water every morning, as did Benjamin Franklin. P. 66
Ron Chernow on Alexander Hamilton.
I believe this book spawned the Broadway musical. Lots of focus on Hamilton of late.
Like Dr. Johnson easy to see that Hamilton was a genius. P. 73
Hamilton clearly had a roving eye. P. 77
From the beginning Jefferson was gunning for him. P. 83
Walter Isaacson on Benjamin Franklin.
The more I read about BF, the more I like and respect him. Truly a Renaissance Man more admirable than Jefferson.
Other than Jerry Lewis, never have we produced a man the French were more gaga about than Franklin. :) P. 109
The grandson Temple. P. 111
Pushed for common ground as at the Constitutional Convention. P. 111
Deism is useless. P. 113
What is useful? P. 113
Kept a list of his "errata." P. 113
Did he realize that compromising on slavery at the convention was a mistake? P. 113
The French read Rousseau too often. :) P. 114
Cokie Roberts on the Founding Wives
Good emphasis by Cokie in that we don't usually give proper credit to people Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison.
"All men would be tyrants if they could." Abigail Adams P. 124
Abagail make sure their only daughter learned Greek and Latin. P. 124
Historians have a thousand letters between John and Abigail, but none between the Jeffersons and the Washingtons because they burned their family letters.
Martha Washington understood politics quite well. P. 127
Dolley Madison said that Jefferson was "despicable." P. 130
Daniel Webster once said, "There is no permanent power in Washington but Dolley Madison." P. 133
Buchanan had his niece Harriet Lane as his WH hostess. P. 134
Benjamin Franklin did not treat his family well. P. 136
Abigail Adams with here clear thinking. P. 136
Doris Kearns Goodwin on Abraham Lincoln.
Goodwin caused a stir when she took on Honest Abe but her FDR book remains her best.
Mention is made here of LBJ.
She says people are remembering the extraordinary things he did: Medicare. the Voting Rights Act, Medicaid, Civil Rights, aid to education, immigration reform, fair housing. It's all quite amazing. P. 142
LBJ could persuade anybody to do anything.
The 19th Century Republican Party did not desire to end slavery but to halt its spreading out West. P. 146
The Southern and Northern cultures were different. P. 147
Secession if allowed to stand would be the death-knell of self-government. P. 148
The Emancipation Proclamation had to be only a legal document. P. 154
DKG grew up a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. P. 159
A. Scott Berg on Charles Lindberg.
I have never had much interest in Charles Lindberg. I have never been able to relate to his accomplishment and his celebrity status so long ago.
Franklin Roosevelt believed he was a Nazi. This author says no. Who cares?
Lindbergh lived in his thoughts, his head in the clouds. P. 167
He flew to Paris to get away from his mother. P. 167
Jay Winik on Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Nothing new here.
Winik is not very good.
Jean Edward Smith on Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Professor Smith just removed any desire from me to read any of his other books.
Certainly not his Ike book.
"I might even place him ahead of Franklin Roosevelt." P. 210
That's ridiculous.
Smith makes the utterly preposterous statement that Eisenhower ended segregation in this country by sending troops to Little Rock in 1957. How can a Phd historian be so ignorant? P. 211
Smith claims that when Ike misspoke, he was misspeaking deliberately to confuse our enemies. Maybe so, but I find that hard to believe. He misspoke cause he sometimes could not communicate clearly. That's what I think. P. 211
General Marshall passed on D-Day. It sell into Eisenhower's hands. P. 215
He wanted to divorce Kay Summersby, but his command refused permission. That she was his driver was a cover story. P. 219
Animosity toward Gen. McArthur led him to seek the Republican presidential nomination. P. 222
It would seem that he wanted Nixon to remove himself from the ticket but wouldn't fire him. P. 223
Fundamentalist upbringing but didn't carry it forward. P. 227
Never a fan of Nixon. P. 228
Richard Reeves on John F. Kennedy.
I remember reading this book several years. It is the best JFK book I've read.
Kennedy might not be electable today given his health problems.
Taylor Branch on Martin Luther King, Jr.
Branch's three volumes are the supreme treatment of the 60's civil rights movement with King at the center.
How did King let the children march into history by walking into Bull Connor's police dogs? Amazing moment in American history.
Without virtue, no government can succeed. P. 261
Conspiracy theories are a way of avoiding confronting our real problems. P. 272
King balanced one foot in the Scriptures, one foot in the Declaration of Independence, and one foot in the Constitution.
We have lost today what he stood for.
Robert Caro on Lyndon B. Johnson.
Caro is the premier LBJ biographer of our time. I have his 4 values as he is at work in his 80's on volume 5.
As a born politician, ambitious, cunning, thirsty for power, always needing to be the center of attention, LBJ is enlivened like no one else by Robert Caro.
Caro delivers the goods on Johnson's stolen election in 1948. Okay, good to know.
Bob Woodward on Richard M. Nixon.
I have never been a Woodward fan.
Nixon's the one. P. 303
I have always supported Ford's pardon of Nixon.
Ford was right in saying that he had to get rid of him. P. 307
How Ali was acquitted. P. 308
Roe vs. Wade is not a legal opinion: it's a medical opinion. P. 309
H.W. Brands on Ronald Reagan.
I have never liked Brands.
He writes too many books from all over the place.
David M. Rubenstein interviews Chief Justice John Roberts.
I do not like Roberts. I do not trust Roberts. I do not believe anything he says.
Rubinstein does not ask Roberts about the ideological split on the court which is obvious to everybody.
He does not question the Chief's ridiculous assertion that he does not have Republican judges and Democratic judges but only Supreme Court judges.
The politics of John Roberts are right-wing for all to see.
Finis.
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