No comments about International executive agreements: democratic procedure under the Constitution of the United States.

5 comments about So you want to be president?.

1. Forty-two men with various credentials, talents, sizes, and interests have served as President of the United States. This fascinating and informative book takes us on a whirlwind tour of some of the more unusual quirks and interesting features of the nation's presidents since George Washington first assumed the role. For such a big job, some presidents were quite small in stature (James Madison measured five feet four inches and weighed only one hundred pounds) and came from modest backgrounds (Andrew Johnson could not read until he was fourteen, and several men held jobs as farmers and teachers before becoming President). Just as the presidents left different legacies and made varying contributions, they also had different hobbies and lifestyles. James Monroe spent buckets of money on lavish décor for the White House, while William Harrison began each day with a walk to market and a basket on his arm.
   
   The new edition of this 2000 Caldecott Medal winner is a must-read for its noteworthy facts and amusing caricatures. Woven in are some important economics lessons about jobs, human resources, and the economic role of government. So You Want to Be President? adds a realistic perspective to the achievements of previous presidents by drawing attention to their backgrounds, shortcomings, and antics.



2. A good book for the junior readers interested in presidents. An easy read and enjoyable for the younger reader.



3. This was my granddaughter's comment as she read this book. It got her thinking about sexism and politics. She was familiar with Hillary Clinton and her campaign. I'd say this is a great book for elementary school aged kids.



4. I feel that this is a great book for all ages. It is full of interesting facts about past Presidents. The book points out some good things and some bad things about being the President. I think that kids would be interested in this book because it gives real life details of some past Presidents that most kids can relate to. They may find that they have things in common with some of these past Presidents. This would be a great book to read around election time and on President's Day. It is a fun book to be enjoyed by all.



5. Firstly I think you should read the book So You Want To Be President because it's a funny informing book.
   
   Here are some good things about being president: If you are the president you are going to have a swimming pool, bowling alley, and a movie theatre. The President never has to take out the garbage. In the book there is a story about George H.W. Bush. As a boy George had to eat broccoli. When he grew up, He became president. That was the end of broccoli. Presidents don't have to eat yucky veggies.
   
   Here are some bad things about being President: You have to wear lots of clothing. One of the president named William McKinley wore a frock coat, vest, pin striped trousers, stiff white t-shirt, black satin tie, gloves in his button hole everyday! Another thing is that you have to be polite. And you have lots and lots of homework!
   
   I think you should read this book because it tells you lots of facts and some are funny and some are serious.

No comments about Thomas Jefferson, American Tourist (American Exploration and Travel).

No comments about Story of the Presidents of the United States of America.

No comments about Theodore Roosevelt.

No comments about The illustrious life of William McKinley, our martyred President: The true story of the assassination, in the shadow of death, passing away, funeral ceremonies, ... engravings made from original photographs.

No comments about Sir Charles Tupper, (The makers of Canada, n.s).

5 comments about Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and president (The Library of the presidents).

1. 
   Quoting Mark Twain, who felt that Hayes's presidency "would steadily rise into higher and higher prominence, as time & distance give it a right perspective, until at last it would stand out against the horizon of history in its true proportions," Ari Hoogenboom states that his purpose in writing this biography is "in the hope of fulfilling Twain's prediction ...." Thus from the beginning we are warned that Hoogenboom is out to cast his subject in as favorable a light as possible. He doesn't distort the facts to attain this goal, but his judgments at times seem overstraining and one-sided. For example, a pragmatist to a fault, Hayes compromised on a number of issues (black voting rights in the South, the Chinese Immigration Bill), seeing no use in a fight to perhaps capture the high ground, yet the author is able to dismiss these moves as politically prudent. Hoogenboom includes a 5-page Afterward that is one defense after another of Hayes and his actions as president; it's such a glowing explication of the man that the only thing missing is a standing ovation.
   
   That doesn't mean Hayes was unworthy of any praise. His Civil War career was noteworthy, serving with and leading the 23rd Ohio in many engagements, including South Mountain in Maryland where he was severely wounded. As president, his stand on civil service reform was generally commendable, fighting unsuccessfully against Congress for a civil service commission, introducing the idea of competitive exams for appointments in some departments, and ordering that federal officers not be permitted to take part in political activities. Although hardly mentioned by Hoogenboom, the Hayes administration also did much to stop the wanton destruction of much of the national forest lands. Hayes also was the one who appointed the great Supreme Court justice John Marshall Harlan to the bench.
   
   Of course, Hoogenboom describes in detail the "stolen" election that got Hayes into office. He also relates admirably the post-presidency years of Hayes, his great interest in education and prison reform. Hoogenboom is also a competent writer, and he sweeps the reader along laudably with his narrative. The biography is an informative and interesting account of the nineteenth president; it's just that the author's singular purpose in writing the book must be kept in mind while reading it.



2. One of my favorite biographies, Ari Hoogenboom's "Hayes" is a positive and incisive look at the 19th president. Hayes is the prototypical Midwesterner, successful, yet humble, proper and reform minded, but not priggish or censorious. Hayes had a genuine concern for humanity and America. Though limited in the lengths he would travel to enact social changes we would today deem necessary (or that he himself would wish for), Hayes should be better-remembered. Hoogenboom's work is quite thorough, covering both Hayes's political and personal life.
   Hayes has been criticized for giving up on Reconstruction and thus dooming blacks to a century of repression, but Hayes had genuine concern for blacks. However, by 1877 Hayes was quite limited in what he could do politically to maintain Reconstruction. Hayes was traditionally criticized for doing little to address the growing inequalities of the American economy. But, although he did help put down nation-wide strikes, Hayes was more sympathetic to labor than any other late 19th century president. I was also surprised to read about the extensive post-presidency work of Hayes, comparable to Jimmy Carter.



3. Over the last few years I've read more than 30 presidential biographies, usually using Amazon to guide me to the best book on each president. Hoogenboom's biography of Hayes seemed the best, and I was not disappointed. Hayes comes off as a courageous man of good intentions, but also as a man who was unable to overcome the nation`s problems while he was president. His childhood story is told in detail, and it reminds us just how difficult it was to survive from day to day 200 years ago. He was a genuine Civil War hero. 1876 was certainly the US's most contentious national election. There were so many deals and chicaneries in determining the outcome in 1876 that no one will ever know who should have won.
   
   As president Hayes lacked anything resembling a mandate, and the Republican Party was divided between spoils men and those who wanted reform. Reconstruction had failed, and it is beyond me to imagine what anyone could have done to develop a better outcome for African Americans or national unity. Suffice it to say Hayes didn't solve either problem, and although he could be criticized for not trying harder to bring out civil service reforms and to insure ensure voting rights, there simply was not enough support for these efforts. He did work to make the US economy sound after a stiff recession and he was probably the only president that cared a wit for treating Native Americans in a respectful manner.
   
   To my surprise Hayes was genuinely a good man rather than just another Ohio politician who became a 19th century president. Hayes actually considered his world and shaped his beliefs and actions according to his synthesis of the truth, rather than going along with the crowd. His reactions to the temperance movement and organized religion are worthy of our respect. Hayes made a genuine commitment to education and was a catalyst for funding black universities and Ohio State. He was appalled at excessive wealth and championed redistribution of wealth. At his core he was a man of the people and a good husband. He simply cannot be compared to most politicos of his time.
   
   Hoogenboom's narrative lays out Hayes and his times in readable detail. He is not a great biographer in terms of bringing his characters to life, but this biography is well organized. This is a better than average biography about a fascinating time in US history.



4. I have to give Professor Hoogenboom credit for giving it the old college try. He does his very best to portray Hayes as an effective politician and as a real reformer. Unfortunately, the case he makes is simply not convincing.

   To be fair to Hayes, this is not to say that his life was uninteresting. This biography shows that Hayes was not just some non-entity that was tapped for the GOP nomination by the power-brokers of the party, but that he had a pretty interesting life (a Civil War record of real consequence, plus an impressive career in Ohio politics) prior to ascending to the presidency.

   Unfortunately, the only reason we are reading a Hayes biography is because he became President, not because he was a Civil War general or a governor of Ohio. It is when dealing with Hayes' record as President that Hoogenboom fails to persuade the reader of Hayes' impact & commitment to reform.

   For one thing, Hoogenboom pulls way too many punches when it comes to the 1876 elections. He equivocates; he is not willing to say that the elections were on the up-and-up, but neither is he willing to concede that Hayes was involved in what was a truly stolen election. Anyone who thinks the 2000 election was stolen ought to take a good look at 1876. Like it or not, Hayes was complicit in this, and his credibility was compromised from the very beginning of his term.

   It really doesn't get any better from there. Was Hayes a dynamic, reform-minded president? Good luck trying to prove that --- the record simply does not support that contention, no matter how hard Hoogenboom tries accentuate the positive. Granted, Hayes' administration was not the embarrassment of scandals that typified Ulysses Grant's administration, and certainly corrupt Republicans like Roscoe Conkling & James Blaine make Hayes look quite pure, but this does not mean that Hayes had any genuine tendency towards reform. One only has to examine the not particularly comfortable relationship between Hayes and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz to see how Hayes felt about the movement supporting civil service reform, for example.

   So we are left with a mixed bag. The only other Hayes biography I have read was written in the early 1930's and was so appallingly racist that I couldn't put it down fast enough. There has been precious little written on Hayes since then, so Hoogenboom has provided a great service. It is a well-written & well-researched biography, so there are no complaints in that regard. I simply do not feel that the author has convincingly made his case.




5. Hayes had an interesting life and an active time in the Civil War. This book is aimed at presenting a favorable picture of him, and is written kind of like old-fashioned biographies. It pays excessive attention ro Hayes' diary, and contains considerable trivia. Some chapters are boring. The most interesting chapters are are, obviously, on 1876 and 1877 and the dramatic events around Hayes' election to the Presidency. And yes, the Republicans stole that election too!

No comments about Our Presidents;: Brief biographies of our chief magistrates from Washington to Truman, 1789-1949.

1 comments about Our Very Illustrious Brother, Abraham Lincoln.

1. The bicentennial anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth will take place on February 12, 2009. "Our Very Illustrious Brother, Abraham Lincoln" by bibliographer Larissa P. Watkins is co-published by Oak Knoll Press and the Library of the Supreme Council in order to present an up-to-date bibliography for Lincoln scholars and American history enthusiasts in preparation for the anticipated celebration. A work of exhaustive scholarship, "Our Very Illustrious Brother, Abraham Lincoln" features some 1,000 entries, including more than 100 images of covers and title pages, as well as brief excerpts about President Lincoln drawn from many of the listed publications. With the inclusion of an informative foreword, an informed introduction, a 26-page facsimile of "Abraham Lincoln, Freemason" by Lincoln collector and scholar L. D. Carman, "Our Very Illustrious Brother, Abraham Lincoln" is a very strongly recommended and absolutely core addition to personal, academic, and community library Abraham Lincoln and American History reference collections.