James Monroe
Author: Troll Communications L.L.C.
Publisher:
Published: 1999-01-01
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9780816760275
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPosts
James Monroe, Young Patriot
Author: Rae Bains
Publisher:
Published: 1986
Total Pages: 52
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDescribes the life of the fifth president of the United States, with an emphasis on his youth in Virginia.
James Monroe
Author: Tim McGrath
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2021-05-04
Total Pages: 753
ISBN-13: 0451477278
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe extraordinary life of James Monroe: soldier, senator, diplomat, and the last Founding Father to hold the presidency, a man who helped transform thirteen colonies into a vibrant and mighty republic. “A first-rate account of a remarkable life.”—Jon Meacham • “Fascinating.” —H. W. Brands • “Captivating... Highly recommended.”—Nathaniel Philbrick • “A luminous portrait of the most underappreciated of our Founders.”—Joel Richard Paul • “Excellent.”—Library Journal (starred review) Monroe lived a life defined by revolutions. From the battlefields of the War for Independence, to his ambassadorship in Paris in the days of the guillotine, to his own role in the creation of Congress's partisan divide, he was a man who embodied the restless spirit of the age. He was never one to back down from a fight, whether it be with Alexander Hamilton, with whom he nearly engaged in a duel (prevented, ironically, by Aaron Burr), or George Washington, his hero turned political opponent. This magnificent new biography vividly re-creates the epic sweep of Monroe’s life: his near-death wounding at Trenton and a brutal winter at Valley Forge; his pivotal negotiations with France over the Louisiana Purchase; his deep, complex friendships with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; his valiant leadership when the British ransacked the nation’s capital and burned down the Executive Mansion; and Monroe’s lifelong struggle to reckon with his own complicity in slavery. Elected the fifth president of the United States in 1816, this fiercest of partisans sought to bridge divisions and sow unity, calming turbulent political seas and inheriting Washington's mantle of placing country above party. Over his two terms, Monroe transformed the nation, strengthening American power both at home and abroad. Critically acclaimed author Tim McGrath has consulted an extensive array of primary sources, many rarely seen since Monroe's own time, to conjure up this fascinating portrait of an essential American statesman and president.
The Other War of 1812
Author: James G. Cusick
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2007-04-01
Total Pages: 397
ISBN-13: 0820329215
DOWNLOAD EBOOKResurrecting a forgotten chapter in transatlantic history, James G. Cusick tells how, just before the United States went to war against Great Britain in 1812, an ill-advised invasion of a Spanish colony became a stage on which the young republic clumsily acted out its imperial ambitions and racial fears. With the halfhearted backing of President James Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe, a party of Georgians invaded East Florida, confident that partisans there would help them swiftly wrest the colony away from Spain. The raid was a strategic and political disaster. Few sympathizers materialized, official U.S. support dissolved, and an extended guerrilla war ensued. This was the "other war of 1812," or the Patriot War. Cusick, a lively storyteller as well as a meticulous scholar, conveys the savagery of the borderlands conflict that pitted American adventurers and anti-Spanish partisans against Spanish loyalists and their allies, who included Seminole Indians and escaped slaves. At the same time, Cusick looks at the American motivations behind the invasion, including apprehensions about Florida's growing population of unregulated blacks and geopolitical intrigues involving Spain, Britain, and France.
James Monroe
Author: Gary Hart
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2005-10-05
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 1466823054
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe former senator and presidential candidate offers a provocative new assessment of the first "national security president" James Monroe is remembered today primarily for two things: for being the last of the "Virginia Dynasty"—following George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison—and for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, his statement of principles in 1823 that the western hemisphere was to be considered closed to European intervention. But Gary Hart sees Monroe as a president ahead of his time, whose priorities and accomplishments in establishing America's "national security" have a great deal in common with chief executives of our own time. Unlike his predecessors Jefferson and Madison, Monroe was at his core a military man. He joined the Continental Army at the age of seventeen and served with distinction in many pivotal battles. (He is prominently featured at Washington's side in the iconic painting Washington Crossing the Delaware.) And throughout his career as a senator, governor, ambassador, secretary of state, secretary of war, and president, he never lost sight of the fact that without secure borders and friendly relations with neighbors, the American people could never be truly safe in their independence. As president he embarked on an ambitious series of treaties, annexations, and military confrontations that would secure America's homeland against foreign attack for nearly two hundred years. Hart details the accomplishments and priorities of this forward-looking president, whose security concerns clearly echo those we face in our time. "A well-written, useful précis of Monroe’s life and career." - Kirkus Reviews
The Virginia Dynasty
Author: Lynne Cheney
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2021-09-21
Total Pages: 449
ISBN-13: 1101980052
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“The narrative offers informed, exacting characterizations of the uncertain political alliances, strained interactions and ideological growing pains that elites of the post-revolutionary decades put the country through.”—Andrew Burstein, The Washington Post A vivid account of leadership focusing on the first four Virginia presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe—from the bestselling historian and author of James Madison. From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four of the nation's first five presidents—a geographic dynasty whose members led a revolution, created a nation, and ultimately changed the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were born, grew to manhood, and made their homes within a sixty-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Friends and rivals, they led in securing independence, hammering out the United States Constitution, and building a working republic. Acting together, they doubled the territory of the United States. From their disputes came American political parties and the weaponizing of newspapers, the media of the day. In this elegantly conceived and insightful new book from bestselling author Lynne Cheney, the four Virginians are not marble icons but vital figures deeply intent on building a nation where citizens could be free. Focusing on the intersecting roles these men played as warriors, intellectuals, and statesmen, Cheney takes us back to an exhilarating time when the Enlightenment opened new vistas for humankind. But even as the Virginians advanced liberty, equality, and human possibility, they held people in slavery and were slaveholders when they died. Lives built on slavery were incompatible with a free and just society; their actions contradicted the very ideals they espoused. They managed nonetheless to pass down those ideals, and they became powerful weapons for ending slavery. They inspired Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and today undergird the freest nation on earth. Taking full measure of strengths and failures in the personal as well as the political lives of the men at the center of this book, Cheney offers a concise and original exploration of how the United States came to be.
Patrick Henry
Author: Thomas S Kidd
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-11-22
Total Pages: 322
ISBN-13: 0465028101
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMost Americans know Patrick Henry as a fiery speaker whose pronouncement "Give me liberty or give me death!" rallied American defiance to the British Crown. But Henry's skills as an orator -- sharpened in the small towns and courtrooms of colonial Virginia -- are only one part of his vast, but largely forgotten, legacy. As historian Thomas S. Kidd shows, Henry cherished a vision of America as a virtuous republic with a clearly circumscribed central government. These ideals brought him into bitter conflict with other Founders and were crystallized in his vociferous opposition to the U.S. Constitution. In Patrick Henry, Kidd pulls back the curtain on one of our most radical, passionate Founders, showing that until we understand Henry himself, we will neglect many of the Revolution's animating values.
Madison and Jefferson
Author: Andrew Burstein
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Published: 2013-01-29
Total Pages: 850
ISBN-13: 0812979001
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“[A] monumental dual biography . . . a distinguished work, combining deep research, a pleasing narrative style and an abundance of fresh insights, a rare combination.”—The Dallas Morning News The third and fourth presidents have long been considered proper gentlemen, with Thomas Jefferson’s genius overshadowing James Madison’s judgment and common sense. But in this revelatory book about their crucial partnership, both are seen as men of their times, hardboiled operatives in a gritty world of primal politics where they struggled for supremacy for more than fifty years. With a thrilling and unprecedented account of early America as its backdrop, Madison and Jefferson reveals these founding fathers as privileged young men in a land marked by tribal identities rather than a united national personality. Esteemed historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg capture Madison’s hidden role—he acted in effect as a campaign manager—in Jefferson’s career. In riveting detail, the authors chart the courses of two very different presidencies: Jefferson’s driven by force of personality, Madison’s sustained by a militancy that history has been reluctant to ascribe to him. Supported by a wealth of original sources—newspapers, letters, diaries, pamphlets—Madison and Jefferson is a watershed account of the most important political friendship in American history. “Enough colorful characters for a miniseries, loaded with backstabbing (and frontstabbing too).”—Newsday “An important, thoughtful, and gracefully written political history.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
John Quincy Adams
Author: Paul C. Nagel
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2012-12-05
Total Pages: 636
ISBN-13: 0307828190
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFebruary 21, 1848, the House of Representatives, Washington D.C.: Congressman John Quincy Adams, rising to speak, suddenly collapses at his desk; two days later, he dies in the Speaker’s chamber. The public mourning that followed, writes Paul C. Nagel, “exceeded anything previously seen in America. Forgotten was his failed presidency and his often cold demeanor. It was the memory of an extraordinary human being—one who in his last years had fought heroically for the right of petition and against a war to expand slavery—that drew a grateful people to salute his coffin in the Capitol and to stand by the railroad tracks as his bier was transported from Washington to Boston.” Nagel probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic, erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career spanned many offices: minister to Holland, Russia, and England, U.S. senator, secretary of state, president of the United States (1825-1829), and, finally, U.S. representative (the only ex-president to serve in the House). On the basis of a thorough study of Adams’ seventy-year diary, among a host of other documents, the author gives us a richer account than we have yet had of JQA’s life—his passionate marriage to Louisa Johnson, his personal tragedies (two sons lost to alcoholism), his brilliant diplomacy, his recurring depression, his exasperating behavior—and shows us why, in the end, only Abraham Lincoln’s death evoked a great out-pouring of national sorrow in nineteenth-century America. We come to see how much Adams disliked politics and hoped for more from life than high office; how he sought distinction in literacy and scientific endeavors, and drew his greatest pleasure from being a poet, critic, translator, essayist, botanist, and professor of oratory at Harvard; how tension between the public and private Adams vexed his life; and how his frustration kept his masked and aloof (and unpopular). Nagel’s great achievement, in this first biography of America’s sixth president in a quarter century, is finally to portray Adams in all his talent and complexity.
Presidents Were Teenagers Too
Author: Benny Wasserman
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Published: 2009-01-19
Total Pages: 220
ISBN-13: 1426982739
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBy sharing our former presidents' shortcomings and weaknesses when they were most vulnerable and naive, in addition to their strengths and successes, we allow our youth to realize it is normal and part of growing up. Why should any person be stigmatized for the rest of his life because he committed indiscretions when he was a teenager? The purpose of this book is to encourage adolescents to never give up. No one ever really knows his or her ultimate capability, and none of us has any idea what our limits truly are. Only by trying, and then trying harder, will we be able to see how much we can accomplish with our minds and bodies. The younger a person is when he recognizes that he has no mental limitations, the sooner he can rise to his full potential. There is no special training to become president. One must simply be thirty-five-years-old, a U.S. citizen, and not a convicted felon. It is true that in our inglorious past our U.S. Constitution didn't allow blacks (until the 15th Amendment in 1870 and then the Voting Rights Act of 1965) or women (until the 19th Amendment in 1920) to participate in our political democracy. Although no one from either group has yet become chief executive, each has made significant inroads into our political system. I am quite certain that we will see an African-American or a female president in the not so distant future.
