Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 - Hardcover

Beschloss, Michael R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684857057 ISBN 13: 9780684857053

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2007

Synopsis

Documents crucial historical moments in each of the first forty-three presidencies during which the future of the United States has been dramatically affected by a bold executive decision, in an account that offers insight into the factors that influenced the most difficult choices made by each president. 250,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Beschloss has been called "the nation's leading Presidential historian" by Newsweek. He has written eight books on American Presidents and is NBC News Presidential Historian, as well as contributor to PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two sons.

Reviews

Reviewed by Alan Wolfe

It has become a cliché to point out that while academic historians write dense, imponderable tomes to get tenure, popular historians satisfy the public hunger with powerfully written and engaging narratives. This cliché could be disproved in two ways: Academics could write terrific histories, and popular historians could write dreadful ones.

Michael Beschloss picks the second option. Presidential Courage is boring, repetitive and badly written. It tells us nothing we did not know before. And it substitutes melodrama for the actualities of history.

The thesis of Beschloss's book is that presidents sometimes act courageously. Like one of his heroes, John F. Kennedy, Beschloss defines courage as the willingness to do the right thing rather than the popular thing. The rest of the book is devoted to offering examples of this not very stunning insight. Included are George Washington's support of the unpopular Jay Treaty, John Adams's willingness to break with extreme Federalists, Andrew Jackson's successful struggle with Nicholas Biddle and the Second National Bank, Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting, FDR's leadership during America's entry into World War II, Harry Truman's support for a Jewish state, John F. Kennedy's fight for civil rights, and Ronald Reagan's decision to ignore the hard-line anti-communists in his party to find common ground with Mikhail Gorbachev.

To tell his tale, Beschloss writes chapters that rarely exceed 10 pages. He is fond of paragraphs that contain only one sentence. With the possible exception of John Adams, none of the presidents he chooses is controversial or surprising. And what he says about each has been said many times before: Andrew Jackson was a man to whom honor was important, Teddy Roosevelt overcame his poor physical health, and Ronald Reagan liked to talk about his movie roles. It is as if Beschloss never wants to tax the minds of his readers. He taxes their attention span instead, for it is easier to read longer narratives filled with fascinating twists and turns than to work one's way through Beschloss's choppy, disconnected stories.

Once one of these stories has been told, moreover, one gets the point of them all. Where does courage come from? Let's try God. So despite the fact that America's presidents vary greatly in their faith commitments, Beschloss's presidents invariably turn to religion for reassurance. Jackson "drew strength from his religious belief and Bible reading." Lincoln was able to face possible political defeat because he "drew in part on his religious faith." Harry Truman "tried to be a serious Christian." Ronald Reagan "was in fact a determined Christian." Life rarely follows a script. Beschloss's lives of the presidents always do.

One of America's greatest historians, academic and popular at the same time, was Richard Hofstadter, and he turned to historical figures to teach his readers about the ironic and the unexpected. But Beschloss is not only predictable in the presidents he chooses, he is also completely conventional in choosing the acts of courage that define them.

Harry Truman offers one example. Truman defended the Jewish right to a homeland, even though he was warned by Secretary of State George Marshall about the potential strategic importance of the Arabs. As much as I am glad that Truman gave his support to Israel, how courageous was his action? It helped him raise money for his 1948 campaign, and he thought it might help him win New York, which in the event he did not. Given what we now know, it would have been more courageous if Truman had taken Marshall's advice more seriously. Greater balance in American foreign policy then might have led to greater security in the Middle East now.

Then there is the Ronald Reagan question. Reagan was once dismissed as an ignoramus, but now a significant number of historians have come to accept his greatness. No challenge to that conventional wisdom can be found here. Beschloss puts Reagan in his pantheon because he showed the courage to deal with the Russians. But Reagan's insistence on America's innocence prepared the way for the wild-eyed neo-conservative fantasy that became America's humiliation in Iraq. A more courageous president might have tried to teach his people about the complexities of the world. Whatever else he did, Reagan never did that.

Beschloss concludes his book by saying that some of his courageous presidents learned the art of leadership by reading about the past. Let us hope that no future presidents turn to this book in search of insights about how to lead. For if they did, they would learn more about how presidents can be turned into myths than about the actual decisions they had to make.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Over the past two decades, Michael Beschloss has become one of our most popular and prolific historians, recognizable from his many television appearances and bankable in the mold of David McCullough, Stephen Ambrose, Douglas Brinkley, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Previous books include Taking Charge (1997), an examination of LBJ's White House tapes, and The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany (2002). Critics are not as kind to Presidential Courage as to the author's previous efforts, commenting frequently on a rushed, uneven, and unnecessarily episodic prose style (what Mary Beth Norton deems "the written equivalent of sound bites"). Beschloss's thesis-that presidents are sometimes required to make unpopular decisions-forces on these profiles a sameness that, despite the author's research, reputation, and obvious passion for the subject, undermines the book's effectiveness.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Don't be afraid!" was George Washington's near-to-last utterance, to the worried doctor at his bedside. The essential founding father's counsel is understood by well-known historian Beschloss (The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany) to set an example for future presidents. Beschloss outlines how several occupants of the Oval Office—including Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Reagan—combined courage with wisdom to change the future of the country, notwithstanding the slings and arrows they earned. Despite its unpopularity at the time, for instance, Reagan's "strong beliefs combined with his optimism" led him to pursue the policy to abolish nuclear weapons, which helped bring down the Soviet empire peacefully. None of the author's heroes were saints, but rather flawed men sustained by friends, families, conviction and religious faith. With contenders for 2008 already lining up, this well-timed book might, the author hopes, persuade some to take the kinds of "wise political risks that Presidents once did."Perhaps. But knowledgeable readers should look elsewhere for genuine historical insight. The author's broad brushstrokes necessarily restrict him to painting nuanced individuals and complex times in only basic primary colors, and there is little that has not been said before—in some cases, many times. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The office of the American presidency is unique among Western democracies because it combines the functions of head of state and chief executive. The president has consistently been viewed as the chief driver of national destiny, even during periods of legislative dominance. Although their power may sometimes be illusory, Beschloss, a prominent presidential historian, has found the traits of courage and wisdom to be common and essential in our most successful presidents. Using new sources and providing interesting perspectives, Beschloss examines a variety of actions and decisions taken by presidents under great stress. Although the broad outlines of these actions are familiar, he provides extensive details that are rarely offered in general texts. Some of the more interesting episodes examined here include Washington's decision to fight for ratification of the unpopular Jay's Treaty with Britain, Jackson's struggle against the rechartering of the Bank of the United States, and Truman's decision to support the establishment of the state of Israel, despite vociferous opposition from the State Department. For both scholars and general readers. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684857057
• ISBN 13: 9780684857053
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448