Theodore Rex
Theodore Rex

Author: Edmund Morris

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2010-11-24

Total Pages: 794

ISBN-13: 0307777812

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A shining portrait of a presciently modern political genius maneuvering in a gilded age of wealth, optimism, excess and American global ascension.”—San Francisco Chronicle WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY • “[Theodore Rex] is one of the great histories of the American presidency, worthy of being on a shelf alongside Henry Adams’s volumes on Jefferson and Madison.”—Times Literary Supplement Theodore Rex is the story—never fully told before—of Theodore Roosevelt’s two world-changing terms as President of the United States. A hundred years before the catastrophe of September 11, 2001, “TR” succeeded to power in the aftermath of an act of terrorism. Youngest of all our chief executives, he rallied a stricken nation with his superhuman energy, charm, and political skills. He proceeded to combat the problems of race and labor relations and trust control while making the Panama Canal possible and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But his most historic achievement remains his creation of a national conservation policy, and his monument millions of acres of protected parks and forest. Theodore Rex ends with TR leaving office, still only fifty years old, his future reputation secure as one of our greatest presidents.

Theodore Rex
Theodore Rex

Author: Edmund Morris

Publisher: Random House Incorporated

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 772

ISBN-13: 0812966007

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Describes Theodore Roosevelt's presidency as he faced the challenges of a new century in which the United States would become a world power, and discusses his accomplishments and failures, the enemies he made, and his family life. Reprint. 250,000 first printing.

Accidental Presidents
Accidental Presidents

Author: Jared Cohen

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2020-01-28

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1501109839

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This New York Times bestselling “deep dive into the terms of eight former presidents is chock-full of political hijinks—and déjà vu” (Vanity Fair) and provides a fascinating look at the men who came to the office without being elected to it, showing how each affected the nation and world. The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Eight men have succeeded to the presidency when the incumbent died in office. In one way or another they vastly changed our history. Only Theodore Roosevelt would have been elected in his own right. Only TR, Truman, Coolidge, and LBJ were re-elected. John Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his term. He was kicked out of his party and became the first president threatened with impeachment. Millard Fillmore succeeded esteemed General Zachary Taylor. He immediately sacked the entire cabinet and delayed an inevitable Civil War by standing with Henry Clay’s compromise of 1850. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded our greatest president, sided with remnants of the Confederacy in Reconstruction. Chester Arthur, the embodiment of the spoils system, was so reviled as James Garfield’s successor that he had to defend himself against plotting Garfield’s assassination; but he reformed the civil service. Theodore Roosevelt broke up the trusts. Calvin Coolidge silently cooled down the Harding scandals and preserved the White House for the Republican Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. Harry Truman surprised everybody when he succeeded the great FDR and proved an able and accomplished president. Lyndon B. Johnson was named to deliver Texas electorally. He led the nation forward on Civil Rights but failed on Vietnam. Accidental Presidents shows that “history unfolds in death as well as in life” (The Wall Street Journal) and adds immeasurably to our understanding of the power and limits of the American presidency in critical times.

Full Naval Honors
Full Naval Honors

Author: Robert Macomber

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2023-04-01

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1682478955

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The memoirs of RADM Peter Wake, USN, steam into the twentieth century in Full Naval Honors. This final volume finds the admiral dealing with European and Japanese spies and assassins in the Pacific while on a “diplomatic” recon mission ahead of the Great White Fleet‘s epic 1907-09 voyage around the world. The action continues at the beginning of World War I, as Wake clashes with a German espionage network in the Central American jungle. The reader will be at Wake‘s side when he visits his friend Theodore Roosevelt‘s New York home in 1918, as that family learns of their tragic war loss. Following that war, readers will learn the poignant story of Peter Wake‘s final years in Key West with his beloved Maria. But Peter Wake‘s story doesn‘t end there, for the call of duty lives on in his descendants as they are plunged into the midst of World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the First Gulf War. From a clandestine mission by Wake‘s son inside the Crimea at the chaotic end of World War I and the start of the Russian Civil War, to a World War II minesweeper commanded by Wake‘s grandson in 1941 at the doomed Philippines, the reader is enveloped in a new era of adventure with the Wake family. On the other side of World War II, we find another Wake grandson training Cuban sailors in anti-submarine warfare, giving them critical skills for their famous 1943 victory against a Nazi U-boat on the Cuban coast. The Wake legacy continues as Wake‘s great-grandson skippers a Swift boat in 1968 Vietnam, later becoming a CIA operative with a crucial role in the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. With the 2023 commissioning of Peter Wake‘s great-great-great grandchild as a U.S. naval officer, his descendants continue their service to Navy and Nation into the uncertain twenty-first century. Some things never change, however. Shadowy espionage, world-changing events, crucial split-second decision-making, gut-wrenching combat, tragic losses and great loves—and above all, a never-ending sense of honor and duty—they all form part of the Wake family‘s character as America depends on each generation of them. Full naval honors, indeed.

Flight to the Top of the World
Flight to the Top of the World

Author: David L. Bristow

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2018-07-01

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 1496207041

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In his day Walter Wellman (1858-1934) was one of America's most famous men. To his contemporaries, he seemed like a character from a Jules Verne novel. He led five expeditions in search of the North Pole, two by dogsled and three by dirigible airship, and in 1910 made the first attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air--which the self-styled expert on aerial warfare saw as a mission of world peace. He endured hardships, cheated death on more than one occasion, and surrounded himself with a team of assistants as eccentric and audacious as he was. In addition to his daring adventures, Wellman became a nationally known political reporter and unofficial spokesman for the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations. He was not the first newspaper-sponsored adventurer, but more than any of his predecessors he turned exploration into a real-time media event, and his reputation both flourished and suffered because of it. Wellman lived during a time of rapid social and technological change, when explorers were racing to fill in the last remaining blank spots on the map and when aviation promised to fulfill humanity's greatest hopes and darkest fears. Flight to the Top of the World is a window into Wellman's time and illuminates many of its dreams and contradictions.

What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted
What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted

Author: Tevi Troy

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-09-02

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1621570576

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From Cicero to Snooki, the cultural influences on our American presidents are powerful and plentiful. Thomas Jefferson famously said "I cannot live without books," and his library backed up the claim, later becoming the backbone of the new Library of Congress. Jimmy Carter watched hundreds of movies in his White House, while Ronald Reagan starred in a few in his own time. Lincoln was a theater-goer, while Obama kicked back at home to a few episodes of HBO's "The Wire." America is a country built by thinkers on a foundation of ideas. Alongside classic works of philosophy and ethics, however, our presidents have been influenced by the books, movies, TV shows, viral videos, and social media sensations of their day. In What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culturen in the White House presidential scholar and former White House aide Tevi Troy combines research with witty observation to tell the story of how our presidents have been shaped by popular culture.

Americana
Americana

Author: Bhu Srinivasan

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-12-04

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0399563814

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An absorbing and original narrative history of American capitalism NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE ECONOMIST From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a four-hundred-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things -- the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the twenty-first century. The result is a thrilling alternative history of modern America that reframes events, trends, and people we thought we knew through the prism of the value that, for better or for worse, this nation holds dearest: capitalism. In a winning, accessible style, Bhu Srinivasan boldly takes on four centuries of American enterprise, revealing the unexpected connections that link them. We learn how Andrew Carnegie's early job as a telegraph messenger boy paved the way for his leadership of the steel empire that would make him one of the nation's richest men; how the gunmaker Remington reinvented itself in the postwar years to sell typewriters; how the inner workings of the Mafia mirrored the trend of consolidation and regulation in more traditional business; and how a 1950s infrastructure bill triggered a series of events that produced one of America's most enduring brands: KFC. Reliving the heady early days of Silicon Valley, we are reminded that the start-up is an idea as old as America itself. Entertaining, eye-opening, and sweeping in its reach, Americana is an exhilarating new work of narrative history.