100 books like John Quincy Adams

Abraham Lincoln may be the most written about president (and person) in American history, but his children have been relatively relegated to innocuous side characters who all have a few good stories about them. Lincoln’s Sons by Ruth Painter Randall is still the go-to book for anyone interested in the Lincoln boys, as well as their relationships with their parents. In addition to their early years in Springfield and the famous antics of Willie and Tad in the White House, Randall also follows the boys after the death of their father. She explains the sad life of Tad from 1865 until his early death in 1871, and gives a full accounting of Robert’s impressive legacy as lawyer, businessman, public servant, and protector of his father’s legacy—for decades the only book to do so. There have been a few other books ostensibly about the Lincoln boys in the years since Randall’s… show more.

Many people may know the legend of Alice Roosevelt as the headstrong daughter of Teddy Roosevelt who flouted social conventions in the 1920s and made a lasting mark on Washington, D.C. in later life, but few people have actually read her biography. And anyone interested in the history of the presidency and American politics should. Alice Roosevelt Longworth was more than just America’s most memorable first daughter. She was a legend in her own time, loved and feared by the most powerful men in the capital, the doyenne of D.C. for eighty years (and known for her famous quip, “If you haven’t got have anything nice to say, come sit by me”). Her story is utterly incredible, and in her book Alice, historian Cordery offers a page-turning, compelling portrait of one of the most influential women in 20th century American politics.

The memoirs of presidential children are often self-serving jeremiads about the difficulty of growing up in their father’s shadow. My Father at 100 is no such book. It is a fascinating, heart-warming, deeply touching (as well as overlooked and misunderstood) portrait of an iconic president through the eyes of one of the people who knew him best. Ron, who grew up in the 60s and is a political liberal who often disagreed with many of his father’s opinions and public policies, in this book avoids politics and instead simply “attempts to come to grips” with the father he grew up with. Part researched history, part memoir, and part travelogue to Reagan-related locations around the country, this is a wonderful book that is just an honest study of a man and a search for the truth of his life and the meaning of that life as only a son could write. 

George W. Bush, even today, 14 years after leaving the presidency, is a controversial president. But as with all presidents, to understand their politics and policies you have to first understand their personality and character. That’s what I like about this book: Bruni seeks to explain and understand who Bush was as a man—a man who, although the son of a president, never seemed destined to lead a nation and the world and yet ultimately faced one of the greatest crises in US history. Bruni, a former New York Times reporter who covered Bush as presidential nominee and president, shows W.’s weaknesses and strengths, his somewhat surprising life journey of serious endeavors for an often less-than-serious man, and ultimately how the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, changed Bush’s entire outlook and demeanor, thrusting him into an unprecedented challenge that elevated the laid-back good-time guy to a serious and dedicated leader.… show more.

A soldier in an Iowa infantry regiment, John Quincy Adams Campbell spent the conflict in the war’s western theater, present at, among other things, the fall of Vicksburg on July 4,1863, which even at the time he recognized as a turning point of the war. His diary, interlaced with some letters that he wrote to his hometown during the war, comments incisively on the military progress of war in the Mississippi Valley from the perspective of one infantrymen, offering today’s readers insights into the immediacy and also the limits of the view of one person actually living through the alternating boredom of camp life and terror of battle. Campbell also commented astutely on social conditions, on the motivations of his fellow soldiers and of the populations they met in the South, and on all that he saw at stake in the war. His first-hand account offers sharp insight into the… show more.

Finished in 1907, this famed book is worth rereading today for awareness that its pervasive pessimism proved totally wrong. Adams declared that western democracy was doomed, that freedom had no chance if forced into war versus dictatorship, that the pace change was overwhelming, that the U.S. educational system could not possibly teach science. A century later, democracy prevailed in both world wars, free nations out-produce dictatorships 10 to 1, and America has won more Nobel prizes in the sciences than the next five nations combined. Pessimism has long been with us – and almost always been wrong.

I already mentioned this gripping account of a 40-days trip of a lonely lady in a solitary carriage, hobbling from St. Petersburg, via Riga, Tilsit to Paris above. Everyone interested in the Napoleonic Wars, should also feel obliged to read her account, how she witnessed ‘houses half burnt’, a war ‘shedding its gloom around all the objects, announcing devastation and despair’. And how happy she was when being helped by allied soldiers, and upon reaching her destination safe and sound (with her little boy) in Paris, where the allied leaders were setting up their headquarters.

Public inquiries these days last ten years or more, often without reaching a conclusion. But the American Senate inquiry into the sinking of Titanic opened the day after survivors docked in New York and was wrapped up in five weeks, with all the ugly facts laid bare.

Like its British counterpart some weeks later, the Senators had the advantage of questioning witnesses while events were still fresh in their minds and before stories could be conveniently changed. No stone was left unturned: the ice warnings about the danger of icebergs, the inadequate number of lifeboats, the Titanic’s unanswered SOS calls from nearby ships, the shameful statistics of those who lived and those who died…and so on. The White Star Line’s chairman, Bruce Ismay, was accorded no favours.

A single page sets out the stark reality of how the class system determined who lived and who died. More than half the… show more.

I very nearly put an LBJ or RFK book here, but there’s a greater chance you haven’t heard or may have forgotten Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy’s well-written account of his 1968 political campaign. McCarthy’s insightful memoir gives 21st-century readers a window back into that year of endless drama and conflict. It will also cause some to compare the book’s place in history with Senator Bernie Sanders’s Our Revolution. “1968,” wrote McCarthy, “was the year in which the people, in so far as the system and the process would permit, asserted themselves and demonstrated their willingness to make hard political judgments and to take full responsibility for those judgments. And in so doing they acted with more spirit and commitment than did many political leaders.”

Any book by Robert Caro is a worthy read. His quadrilogy on LBJ is a study of the ultimate, driven pragmatist.

Johnson, in pursuit of his agenda, was the epitome of the deal-maker, sweet-talker, persuader, and sometime-bully. In the work of Caro, Johnson may not be the most lovable of leaders, but certainly, he ranks among one of the most calculating and determined. He understood that achieving consensus, while essential, is not everything.

Furthermore, he had an appreciation that the appropriate use of power is a leadership skill. With that framework, Johnson had an innate understanding of the structural and legal limitations of the use of power. He recognized the rules of the Senate and realized the limitations of the presidency. Within these constraints, he was indeed the master of the influence game and truly the “Master of the Senate.”

There are lessons to learn and warnings to heed for… show more.