Rent Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians

Synopsis

The author of the acclaimed biography of President James Polk offers a fresh, playful, and challenging way of playing America's favorite game—by pitching historians' views and subsequent experts' polls against the judgment and votes of the presidents' own contemporaries.

Presidents rise and fall based on performance, as judged by the electorate. Merry explores the presidency by comparing the judgments of historians with how the voters saw things. Was the president reelected? Did his party hold office in the next election?

Where They Stand examines the chief executives Merry calls "Men of Destiny,'' those who set the country toward new directions. There are six of them, including the three nearly always at the top of all academic polls—Lincoln, Washington, and FDR. "Split-Decision Presidents'' (including Wilson and Nixon) are successful in their first terms and reelected but succeeded by the opposition party. The "Near Greats'' (Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, TR, Truman), the "War Presidents'' (Madison, McKinley, Lyndon Johnson), the flat-out failures (Buchanan, Pierce), and those whose standing has fluctuated (Grant, Cleveland, Eisenhower) are described.

Where They Stand invites readers to vote against the voters of old, historians, the pollsters and the author himself.

View descriptions at Amazon.com