Few presidents have fallen as far in terms of their reputation as has Calvin Coolidge. A popular president during his time in the White House, his standing plummeted with the onset of the Depression and the retroactive discrediting of his administration’s policies that were associated with it. Yet in recent years a number of conservative writers have challenged this view, offering a contrasting interpretation of Coolidge as a presidential paragon. In this respect Amity Shlaes is merely the latest in a long line of writers stretching from Thomas Silver to Robert Sobel who seek to rehabilitate Coolidge’s historical reputation so as to make him a model of presidential leadership for our own times.

Yet it seems that the only way that Shlaes can achieve this goal is by ignoring the many criticisms directed against Coolidge’s presidency. Rather than acknowledging any role that his low-tax, minimalist-regulation agenda might have played in fueling the speculative mania that led to stock market crash of 1929 or the depression that followed, she prefers to depict his administration as having achieved a perfect economic environment that was humming along smoothly when the keys were handed over to his successor. Throwing Herbert Hoover under the bus by blaming him for the collapse that followed is not only grossly unfair, it defies the evidence of an economy in the 1920s that was nowhere near as healthy as Shlaes would like to admit. Moreover, it undermines her goal, as rather than give Coolidge’s achievements a full reexamination that would address the criticisms she does little more than offer a selective portrait that only serves to reaffirm the beliefs of the like‑minded.

This is unfortunate considering the effort she put into her work. For despite Shlaes’s considerable research in the papers of Coolidge and his contemporaries, her overall result adds little to the case made in previous efforts to redeem Coolidge and his presidency. Because of this, readers seeking to learn more about Coolidge would be better served by turning to Sobel’s far superior Coolidge: An American Enigma for an understanding of our 30^th president’s life and career rather than Shlaes’s hefty tome – which, for all its size, proves in the end to be disappointingly hollow.

Few American presidents have suffered from a more dismal historical reputation than Millard Fillmore.  Succeeding to the presidency upon the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850, his years in office were characterized by the increasing failure of the political process to deal with the growing tensions over the issue of slavery.  His greatest triumph as president, the shepherding of the Compromise of 1850 to passage, came to be seen in retrospect as a marker on the path leading to secession and civil war.  Even his very name has come to be held against him – after all, what kind of name was Millard Fillmore for a president?

Yet even a president of Fillmore’s poor standing is not without his defenders, and foremost among them is Robert Rayback.  His biography of America’s 13^th president highlights a remarkable person and an unlikely path to the nation’s highest political office.  Born into a poor farming family in western New York, Fillmore became an attorney by reading the law.  Moving to Buffalo, he prospered with the city and became a leading figure of the community, soon moving from a lucrative legal career into politics.  An able state legislator and Congressman, his nomination for the vice presidency in 1848 nonetheless had to do more with the complex politics of his state than any acknowledgment of his national stature.  When thrust into the presidency, however, Fillmore rose to the challenge, focusing on sectional peace and winning the esteem of southern Whigs for his defense of the institution of slavery against the increasing anti-slavery clamor of the north.  Yet Rayback sees Fillmore’s hesitation over seeking another term as costing him the Whig Party nomination in 1852, while an ill-advised run for the presidency four years later as the nominee of the nativist American (Know-Nothing) Party represented the climax of his career in politics, leaving him to serve a lengthy retirement engaged in a range of civic activities back in Buffalo

Rayback’s biography is a well-written account of Fillmore’s life and career, though one that is far too sympathetic to its subject.  Throughout the book Rayback exaggerates Fillmore’s opposition to slavery and downplays his staunch support for nativism.  His Fillmore possesses no flaws, only virtues which are then exploited by unscrupulous and self-centered opponents who exploit his high-minded goals for their own selfish ends.  Nowhere is this approach demonstrated more clearly than in his depiction of Fillmore’s relationship with Thurlow Weed, the New York editor and political boss. Weed becomes the great villain in Rayback’s account, reducing William H. Seward, Weed’s associate and Fillmore’s real political competitor, to the status of a mere puppet.  Not only is Weed seen as the primary force behind Fillmore’s political setbacks but also his poor historical reputation – all while Fillmore regularly takes the high road or turns the other cheek.  Such partisanship ultimately proves counterproductive, as it undermines the overall value of his book by bringing into question Rayback’s judgment of Fillmore’s character and accomplishments, which distorts the president’s role in American history.  Readers seeking a more balanced analysis of Fillmore would be better off turning to Paul Finkelman’s more recent biography of the man than this book, which is both defined and limited by its author’s passionate defense of his subject.

Zachary Taylor ranks among that small group of presidents who was more famous for what they did before they became president than for their achievements once they occupied the office.  A career army officer, he shot to fame when he led his troops to victory over Mexican forces in the Mexican War.  Basking in the adulation of a grateful nation, his parlayed his triumph into a victory as the Whig candidate in the 1848 presidential election, only to have his presidency cut short by his death less than a year and a half after taking office.

Given Taylor’s background and claim to fame, John S. D. Eisenhower would seem to be the ideal candidate to write a biography of America’s 12^th president.  The son of a former president, he was a career army officer himself before retiring to become a prolific author of military histories.  Yet the end result is disappointing.  Eisenhower’s slim book is a sketchy account of Taylor’s life, one that provides only the barest of details about the man and little real understanding of his role in American history.  The first quarter-century of Taylor’s life are covered in a scant eight paragraphs, reflecting the lack of effort in understanding the role these early years played in shaping his personality.  Much of his early military career is also glossed over in a rush to get to the critical years of the Mexican War.  These chapters play to Eisenhower’s strengths, allowing him to draw upon his previous work on the conflict, .  Yet even here precious space is wasted providing unnecessary or superfluous background to events, diminishing the book’s value as a biography of Taylor even further.

Though Eisenhower’s final chapters dealing with Taylor’s time as president provide more in the way of detail and analysis, they cannot make up for the overall deficiencies of this book.  Overall Eisenhower’s biography is a disappointing entry in “The American Presidents” series, one that fails to reflect the considerable strengths the author brought to the project.  Readers seeking more than the barest details of Taylor’s life would be better off picking up K. Jack Bauer’s far more substantial Zachary Taylor : Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest instead of this book, with fails to satisfy any real appetite to learn about Taylor or his role in American history.

One of the great challenges of writing a biography of America's 32nd president is encapsulating such a challenging character, complex life, and momentous career into the pages of a single volume. Doing so successfully requires incorporating his patrician background and upbringing, his marriage to one of the most remarkable women in American history, his early career in state and national politics, his affliction and adaptation to polio, his successful ascent to the presidency, and his management of two of the greatest challenges the United States and the world has ever faced. Though many have tried, few have pulled it off as well as Jean Edward Smith. A longtime political scientist and biographer, he draws upon both an enormous documentary record and the numerous studies that have been published to describe Franklin Roosevelt's life and achievements within the context of a changing America. Though he uncovers little that s new, he examines it with a critical eye that discovers quite a few insights missed by previous chroniclers. Thanks in no small measure to this, Smith's book stands among the finest biographies of Franklin Roosevelt ever written, one that can be read with profit both by the experienced reader and by anyone seeking a thorough yet accessible account of Franklin Roosevelt and his presidency.

One of the challenges in writing a biography of Herbert Hoover is coming to terms with the sheer length and scope of his life and career. Over the course of his many years Hoover was a mining engineer, an author, a humanitarian, a wartime administrator, a cabinet secretary, and a president of the United States, all during one of the momentous periods in American and world history. Recounting it all poses a formidable challenge for any author; George Nash, who was commissioned by the Hoover Library to write a multivolume biography, took three volumes just to chronicle the first forty-four years of Hoover’s life, leaving it to three other historians to write another three volumes addressing the rest of it.

By this standard David Burner’s achievement in summarizing Hoover’s life within the covers of a single book is a commendable one. Doing so requires him to trade detail for accessibility, yet it also allows him to more easily delineate themes running through the course of Hoover’s life. Burner sees Hoover as a far more activist and progressive figure than is often remembered, one who pursued a number of significant reforms as both Secretary of Commerce and as president. When faced with the successive economic crises of the Great Depression, he moved quickly and aggressively to provide solutions, many of which served as the foundation for the later New Deal. But his response to Depression was ultimately hampered by his commitment to a philosophy of voluntary cooperation that proved inadequate to the magnitude of the crisis, by his poor relations with Congress, and by his technocratic public persona.

That Burner succeeds in making Hoover a sympathetic figure is a testament to the quality of his analysis. Considerable space is devoted to explaining his views, and Hoover’s consistency to them is one of the themes that emerges. Yet ultimately this is a choice that involves some sacrifice, which is reflected in chapters on Hoover’s tenure as Secretary of Commerce and (especially) his post-presidential career that feel rushed and lacking in sufficient detail. Such compromises are forgivable, though, given the result: a book which is still the best single volume on Herbert Hoover’s life and career, one that should be read by anyone seeking to understand better his impact on American history.