In honor of the 2020 Presidential Elections, I decided to read a biography for every single U.S. President. I included 1776 as the only non-President bio on the list. Since I haven’t studied US History since taking one class during my freshman year of college and when I took AP US History during my junior year of high school, I have high hopes of learning something new during this challenge. If only to know not just the correct order of Presidents but to also know more than just their names.
Note: All of the links are for my Goodreads reviews. I also wrote blog post reviews for Washington, John Adams, Madison, and Monroe.
Timeline: August 1, 2019 – January 20, 2021 (Inauguration Day) COMPLETED: January 17, 2021
The Challenge Book List
Washington, the Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner
John Adams by David McCullough
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
James Madison: the Biography by Ralph Ketcham
The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness by Harlow Giles Unger
John Quincy Adams, American Visionary by Fred Kaplan
Andrew Jackson, The Gentle Savage by David Karsner
Martin Van Buren: The American President Series: The 8th President 1837-1841 by Ted Widmer
Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time by Freeman Cleaves
John Tyler: The American Presidents Series: The 10th President, 1841-1845 by Gary May, Jr.
Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman
Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old South by K. Jack Bauer
Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President by Robert J. Rayback
Franklin Pierce: The American President Series: The 14th President, 1853-1857 by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
James Buchanan and the American Empire by Frederick M. Binder
Lincoln by David Herbert Donald
Andrew Johnson: The American Presidents Series: The 17th President, 1865-1869 by Annette Gordon-Reed
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
Chester Alan Arthur: The American Presidents Series: The 21st President, 1881-1885 by Zachary Karabell, Jr.
Grover Cleveland: The American Presidents Series: The 22nd and 24th President, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Benjamin Harrison: The American Presidents Series: The 23rd President, 1889-1893 by Charles W. Calhoun, Jr.
William McKinley and His America by H. Wayne Morgan
William Howard Taft: The American Presidents Series: The 27th President, 1909-1913 by Jeffrey Rosen
The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made by Patricia O’Toole
Warren G. Harding: The American Presidents Series: The 29th President 1921-1923 by John W. Dean, Jr.
Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek
Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President – Robert Dallek
Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell
Jimmy Carter: The American Presidents Series: The 29th President, 1977-1981 by Julian E. Zelizer
Reagan: The Life by H.W. Brands
Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham
First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton by David Maraniss
Bush by Jean Edward Smith
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick
Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President by Michael Kranish
