Worst. President. Ever.
James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents
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Worst. President. Ever.
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Narrated by:
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Tom Perkins
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By:
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Robert Strauss
Worst. President. Ever. flips the great presidential biography on its head, offering an enlightening - and highly entertaining - account of poor James Buchanan's presidency to prove once and for all that, well, few leaders could have done worse.
But author Robert Strauss does much more, leading listeners out of Buchanan's terrible term in office - meddling in the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, exacerbating the Panic of 1857, helping foment the John Brown uprisings and "Bloody Kansas", virtually inviting a half-dozen states to secede from the Union as a lame duck, and on and on - to explore with insight and humor his own obsession with presidents, and ultimately the entire notion of ranking our presidents. He guides us through the POTUS rating game of historians and others who have made their own Mount Rushmores - or Marianas Trenches - of presidential achievement, showing why Buchanan easily loses to any of the others, but also offering insights into presidential history buffs like himself, the forgotten "lesser" presidential sites, sex and the presidency, the presidency itself, and how and why it can often take the best measures out of even the most dedicated men.
©2016 Robert Strauss (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Best Bio On the Worst President Ever
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this was a good bio
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. This book is full of interesting history that most people never learn.How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
I assume the author started this project long before the election of Donald Trump, but the title suggests the publisher, at least, recognized the commercial opportunity afforded by our controversial new Commander in Chief. Still, we don't need the constant drumbeat of "Worst. President. Ever." Also, perhaps it was a necessary writing device to underrate James K. Polk, who is less familiar to the average reader than the author's preferred bookends -- Jackson and Lincoln. But that is a significant weakness in the narrative because Polk was very successful in achieving his aims as President, and he recognized Buchanan as a shallow, climbing placeholder.What about Tom Perkins’s performance did you like?
His delivery was listenable and did not interfere with enjoying the book. Too often, Audible's readers over-dramatize or "over-gravitize" (an invented term, perhaps, but there are Audible readers so proud of their voices that they forget the reason we're listening is NOT them.)Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
No.Any additional comments?
I enjoyed the author's discussion of the Presidential rating game, that marketing trick used by historians to win public recognition of their craft. But his analysis is a little too binary -- some good, others bad. Most have been a well-intentioned mix of success and failure.We have survived bad Presidents before
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#President #History #tagsgiving #sweepstakes
weak on details
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Good despite the rambling
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