Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Presidents & Heads of State

Although the framers gave the president little authority, Washington knew whatever he did would set precedents for generations of his successors. To ensure their ability to defend the nation, he simply ignored the Constitution when he thought it necessary and reshaped the presidency into what James Madison called a "monarchical presidency." Modern scholars call it the "imperial presidency."

From his time as a lifeguard in Illinois to a sports announcer to a rising actor to a labor union leader, then finally governor of California in the tumultuous 1960s and ultimately President, Reagan's life is told as it has never been before.

In The Reagan I Knew, the late William F. Buckley Jr. offers a reminiscence of 30 years of friendship with the man who brought the American conservative movement out of the political wilderness and into the White House. Reagan and Buckley were political allies and close friends throughout Reagan's political career. They went on vacations together and shared inside jokes.

Academics, journalists, and popular historians agree: our greatest presidents are the ones who confronted a national crisis and mobilized the entire nation to face it. That’s the conventional wisdom. The chief executives who are celebrated in textbooks and placed in the top echelon of presidents in surveys of experts are the bold leaders - the Woodrow Wilsons and Franklin Roosevelts - who reshaped the United States in line with their grand “vision” for America. Unfortunately, along the way, these “great” presidents inevitably expanded government - and shrank our liberties.

Few US presidents have captured the imagination of the American people as has Harry S. Truman. In this biography, Robert H. Ferrell, widely regarded as an authority on the 33rd president, challenges the popular characterization of Truman as a man who rarely sought the offices he received, revealing instead a man who - with modesty, commitment to service, and basic honesty - moved with method and system toward the presidency. No other historian has ever demonstrated such command over the vast amounts of material on Truman's life.

Mike Pence's rise to the vice presidency of the United States wasn't always easy. To some, he is the personification of American conservative values, but to others, his ideals are the epitome of prejudice and bigotry. In Pence: The Path to Power, journalist Andrea Neal showcases how the vice president arrived at this position of influence. Neal interviews friends, family, staff, former teachers, and politicians on both sides of the aisle to reveal a multifaceted view of the self-described Christian, Conservative, and Republican.

Curtis Roosevelt knew what it was like to live with a president. His grandfather was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From the time Curtis, with his sister Eleanor and recently divorced mother, Anna Roosevelt Dall, moved into his grandparents' new home - the White House - Curtis played, learned, slept, ate, and lived in one of the most famous buildings in the world with one of its most famous residents.

Nelson Mandela led a long and remarkable life. From his earliest days herding cows in a South African village, he became a child of privilege, a rebellious runaway, a successful lawyer, a political dissident, a rising star in the African nationalist movement, an underground saboteur, a political prisoner, a secret negotiator with South Africa's rulers, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, president of his country, and a statesman who held South Africa together long enough to find reconciliation and the path to prosperity.

Winston Churchill possessed an iron will and a subtle conscience. His staunch patriotism, tenacity, appetite for a fight, and, above all, towering rhetoric inspired the British people to mount a gallant defense of their island nation. Having set a new bar for national heroism, he earned a place in the pantheon of the world’s greatest leaders. Churchill, a fearless soldier, was a veteran of countless battles and a rider in one of Britain’s last cavalry charges. He was also a gifted writer, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, whose war reporting made his name.

Back by popular demand, the bestselling Politically Incorrect Guides provide an unvarnished, unapologetic overview of the topics every American needs to know. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents, Part 1 profiles America’s early presidents, from George Washington to William Howard Taft.

The extraordinary postpresidency of William Jefferson Clinton is unlike the second career of any other president. "Bill Clinton" is a global brand, ascending from the dark days of his White House departure to become perhaps the most popular name in the world. Joe Conason explains how that happened, examining Clinton's achievements, his failures, and his motivations and why his outlook on the world continues to inspire and infuriate on a grand scale.

Told from multiple points of view - including those of James and Dolley Madison and a British admiral - this is the true story of the burning of the White House in 1814. It's unimaginable today, even for a generation that saw the Twin Towers fall and the Pentagon attacked. It's unimaginable because in 1814, enemies didn't fly overhead; they marched through the streets, and for 26 hours in August, the British enemy marched through Washington, DC, and set fire to government buildings, including the US Capitol and the White House.

Teddy Roosevelt became a war hero, reformed the NYPD, busted the largest railroad and oil trusts, passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, created national parks and forests, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and built the Panama Canal - to name just a few. Yet it was the cause he championed the hardest - America's entry into WWI - that would ultimately divide and destroy him. His youngest son, Quentin, his favorite, would die in an air fight.

In this newest addition to the Great Generals Series, John Mosier brings to life the brilliant military strategist Ulysses S. Grant. A modest and unassuming man, Grant never lost a battle, leading the Union to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War, ultimately becoming president of the reunited states. Grant revolutionized military warfare by creating new leadership strategies and by integrating new technologies in classical military strategy.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., Editor-in-Chief of The American Spectator, traces the formative influences on the young, fatherless Clinton by the hustlers and rogues who populated his boyhood hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Today Grover Cleveland is mainly remembered as the only president to be elected to two non-consecutive terms. But in his day, Cleveland was a renowned reformer, an enemy of political machines who joined forces with Theodore Roosevelt to fight powerful party bosses, a moralist who vetoed bills he considered blatant raids on the Treasury, a vigorous defender of the Monroe Doctrine who resisted American imperialism.

James Madison is remembered primarily as a systematic political theorist, but this bookish and unassuming man was also a practical politician who strove for balance in an age of revolution. In this biography, Jeff Broadwater focuses on Madison’s role in the battle for religious freedom in Virginia, his contributions to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, his place in the evolution of the party system, his relationship with Dolley Madison, his performance as a wartime commander-in-chief, and his views on slavery.

Benjamin Franklin's autobiography is one of the greatest autobiographies of all time, but it was incomplete. Franklin ended his life's story in 1757, when he was 51. He lived another 33 eventful years, serving as America's advocate in London, Pennsylvania's representative in the Continental Congress, and America's wartime ambassador to France. Now, at last, we get the rest of the story, in Franklin's own words.

History celebrates George Washington as the leader of the American Revolution and the father of his country. But what has gone previously unexamined is Washington's life as a 22-year-old lieutenant colonel who led 400 American militiamen against a bigger, more experienced French army and paid a high price. Not only did Washington lose over a third of his men but the Battle of Great Meadows was also the spark that ignited the French and Indian War.

Tens of millions of Americans sense there is something very wrong with the president of the United States, but they don’t know what. The Manchurian President answers that question. In writing this exhaustively researched book Aaron Klein, with Brenda J. Elliott, definitively exposes just how dangerous Barack Obama really is as America’s commander-in-chief.