Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and how They Changed America, 1789-1989Simon & Schuster, 2007 - 430 pages From the acclaimed bestselling author ofThe Conquerors Michael Beschloss has brought us a brilliantly readable and inspiring saga about crucial times in America's history when a courageous President dramatically changed the future of the United States. With surprising new sources and a dazzling command of history and human character, Beschloss brings to life these flawed, complex men -- and their wives, families, friends and foes. Never have we had a more intimate, behind-the-scenes view of Presidents coping with the supreme dilemmas of their lives. You will be in the room with the private George Washington, braving threats of impeachment and assassination to make peace with England. John Adams, incurring his party's "unrelenting hatred" by refusing to fight France and warning his enemies, "Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war." Andrew Jackson, in a death struggle against the corrupt Bank of the United States. Abraham Lincoln, risking his Presidency to insist that slaves be freed. Beschloss also shows us Theodore Roosevelt, taunting J. P. Morgan and the Wall Street leaders who dominated his party. Franklin Roosevelt, defying the isolationists -- and maybe the law -- to stop Adolf Hitler. Harry Truman, risking a walkout by top officials to recognize a Jewish state. John Kennedy, the belated champion of civil rights, complaining that he has cost himself a second term. And finally, two hundred years after Washington, Ronald Reagan, irking some of his oldest backers to seek an end to the Cold War. As Beschloss shows in this gripping and important book, none of these Presidents was eager to incur ridicule, vilification or threats of political destruction and even assassination. But in the end, bolstered by friends and family, hidden private beliefs and, sometimes, religious faith, each ultimately proved himself to be, in Andrew Jackson's words, "born for the storm." |
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Page 19
... Writing a fellow Jeffersonian , James Madison , Randolph compared the President to a Roman tyrant : “ I feel happy at my emancipation from attachment to a man who has practiced on me the profound hypocrisy of a Tiberius and the ...
... Writing a fellow Jeffersonian , James Madison , Randolph compared the President to a Roman tyrant : “ I feel happy at my emancipation from attachment to a man who has practiced on me the profound hypocrisy of a Tiberius and the ...
Page 23
... writing as Camillus . Soon he published , in the same Republican paper , more essays — under the pseudonym " Philo Camillus ” —that praised what Camillus was writing . Knowing the identity of the hidden writer , Washington wrote [ 23 ] ...
... writing as Camillus . Soon he published , in the same Republican paper , more essays — under the pseudonym " Philo Camillus ” —that praised what Camillus was writing . Knowing the identity of the hidden writer , Washington wrote [ 23 ] ...
Page 59
... writing a vicious pamphlet , under his own name , exposing Adams's " defects " -the " distempered jealousy , " the “ ex- treme egotism " and " ungovernable temper . " * Showing how he had lost his old touch , Hamilton published his in ...
... writing a vicious pamphlet , under his own name , exposing Adams's " defects " -the " distempered jealousy , " the “ ex- treme egotism " and " ungovernable temper . " * Showing how he had lost his old touch , Hamilton published his in ...
Contents
Chapter Fourteen | 103 |
Chapter Fifteen | 113 |
Chapter Sixteen | 119 |
Copyright | |
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