Americas First President

Bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands narrates the fierce debate over America's role in the world in the runup to World War II through its two most important figures: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who advocated intervention, and his isolationist nemesis, aviator and popular hero Charles Lindbergh.

Acclaimed author Joseph J. Ellis penned the National Book Award-winning American Sphinx and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Founding Brothers, a fixture on The New York Times best seller list for an entire year, and one of the most popular history books of all time. Now this master historian turns his attention to the most exalted American hero, Founding Father and first President George Washington.

On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation's founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders' thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero.

Death was merciful to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for it spared her a parent's worst nightmare: the loss of a child. But if Jackie had lived to see her son, JFK Jr., perish in a plane crash on his way to his cousin's wedding, she would have been doubly horrified by the familiar pattern in the tragedy. Once again, on a day that should have been full of joy and celebration, America's first family was struck by the Kennedy Curse.

Donald Trump was elected president pledging to put America first, as any nation's leader should put his or her own people first. There needs to be an America-first reevaluation of him and his predecessors. This book, therefore, rates the presidents not on the basis of criteria developed by socialist internationalist historians, but on their fidelity to the United States Constitution and to the powers, and limits to those powers, of the president as delineated by the Founding Fathers.

Betty Boyd Caroli's engrossing and informative First Ladies is an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America's First Ladies. Caroli observes the role as it has shifted and evolved from ceremonial backdrop to substantive world figure. This expanded and updated fifth edition presents Caroli's keen political analysis and astute observations of recent developments, including Melania Trump's reluctance to take on the mantle and former First Lady Hilary Clinton's recent run for president. Caroli here contributes a new preface and updated chapters.

Colin Calloway uses the prism of George Washington's life to bring focus to the great Native leaders of his time and the tribes they represented: the Iroquois Confederacy, Lenape, Miami, Creek, Delaware; in the process, he returns them to their rightful place in the story of America's founding. The Indian World of George Washington spans decades of Native American leaders' interactions with Washington, from his early days as surveyor of Indian lands to his military career against both the French and the British to his presidency.

Learn the stories and the struggles each president dealt with as we take a walk through the nation's development. Follow along as we discuss how the United States came into power, the leaders who shaped its development, and the wars that were fought to protect it. This book gives a detailed account of the United States through a look at its presidents. Each chapter takes an educational look at the life of each president, how they came to power, and what the country was like during their time in office. Never before has so much information been packed into one easy-to-listen book.

New York Times best-selling authors and close advisors to the president Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie write from the front lines of Trump's battle to keep America great. Trump: America First gives the listener a firsthand and inside account of the Trump administration's battle for the soul of America.

Taking place during the most critical period of our nation’s birth, The First Conspiracy tells a remarkable and previously untold piece of American history that not only reveals George Washington’s character, but also illuminates the origins of America’s counterintelligence movement that led to the modern day CIA. In 1776, an elite group of soldiers were handpicked to serve as George Washington’s bodyguards. Washington trusted them; relied on them. But unbeknownst to Washington, some of them were part of a treasonous plan.

The common man around the globe lost the day John F. Kennedy died. This book details the story and the struggle, in a way never told before, of a man with the courage to repeatedly take on the most powerful forces on the globe; a man who seemingly had everything—but gave everything—including ultimately his life, in pursuit of creating a better life for us all. Along the way, it asks deep questions about what it all means for our world today.

Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.

George Washington—hero of the French and Indian War, commander in chief of the Continental Army, and first president of the United States—died on December 14, 1799. But what do we really know about Washington as an upper-class man?

As Margaret Truman knows from firsthand experience, living in the White House can be exhilarating and maddening, alarming and exhausting, but it is certainly never dull. Part private residence, part goldfish bowl, and part national shrine, the White House is both the most important address in America and the most intensely scrutinized.

In one of the most underestimated - and challenging - positions in the world, the first lady of the United States must be many things: an inspiring leader with a forward-thinking agenda of her own; a savvy politician, skilled at navigating the treacherous rapids of Washington; a wife and mother operating under constant scrutiny; and an able CEO responsible for the smooth operation of countless services and special events at the White House.

Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at the heart of it all.

How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history; his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist Papers and then helped to found the Republican Party just a few years later. This so-called Madison problem has occupied scholars for ages.

The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.

Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down - even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have listeners - including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads - inhaling every word.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of Founding Brothers and His Excellency brings America’s preeminent first couple to life in a moving and illuminating narrative that sweeps through the American Revolution and the republic’s tenuous early years. John and Abigail Adams left an indelible and remarkably preserved portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence: Both Adamses were prolific letter writers (although John conceded that Abigail was clearly the more gifted of the two), and over the years they exchanged more than 12,000 letters.