Synopsis
A humorous portrait of the ten worst presidents includes Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon, and others and focuses on the two most overrated presidents--Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy--in a book that questions the morals, beliefs, misconduct, and efforts of the leaders of our country that caused major debacles affecting a nation. 30,000 first printing.
Reviews
Combining brief biographical profiles with scathing critiques, this one-man's rogues' gallery offers up Miller's (The Roosevelt Chronicles) opinions on who he considers to be the least successful American presidents. The trenchant though often superficial nature of this account is first revealed in the table of contents, where Miller lambastes William Howard Taft for being so fat he got stuck in a White House bathtub and characterizes Benjamin Harrison as looking like a "medieval gnome" with a handshake like a "wilted petunia," as if these qualities affected leadership. In an epilogue, he deflates two more presidents as the "most overrated"?John F. Kennedy, whom he calls a "confirmed cold warrior" (wasn't virtually everyone in those days?), and Thomas Jefferson, whom he accuses of wrecking the nation's economy and leading the country to war with Britain through the Embargo Act of 1807. Miller writes with passion in this irreverent broadside, where opinion tends to overstep analysis.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Few Americans, let alone historians, express much interest in the worst events or characters, as such, in our history, but presidential historian Miller (The Roosevelt Chronicles, LJ 10/15/97) decided to investigate whom he considers to be the ten worst presidents. His self-described subjective but nonpartisan criteria for measuring our "failed" leaders include bad character, dishonesty, inability to compromise, lack of vision, weak political skills, failure to communicate, and?his most important consideration?"How badly did they damage the nation they were supposed to serve?" Each individual?Carter, Taft, Harrison, Coolidge, Grant, Andrew Johnson, Pierce, Buchanan, Harding, and Nixon?receives about 20 pages, in which Miller provides little more than a Reader's Digest version of a political biography. In the last chapter, the author writes about Jefferson and Kennedy?in his opinion, the two most overrated presidents. There is little to recommend this book to anyone who seriously wants to understand any of these presidents, especially the two "overrated" ones.?Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Even readers who are not history buffs will be intrigued by this well-researched but breezy recap of the ill-fated presidencies of 10 men, some of whom come as usual suspects, others of whom will be surprises. Historian Miller, author of many U.S. histories, eliminates the short-termers (William Henry Harrison, Garfield, et al.) as having passed too quickly through the office to have effected any real good or damage. The earliest president discussed here is number 14, Franklin Pierce. Some of the most entertaining chapters are those on the presidents before and after World War I ( Taft, Harding, and Coolidge, the latter two of whom saw the U.S. spinning wildly toward the great crash and the Depression and did nothing). More recent targets are Carter and Nixon, and, although Miller acknowledges the postpresidential rehabilitations of both, he feels their errors (Carter) and sins (Nixon) committed while in the Oval Office are too great to overcome. Joe Collins
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