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Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989
Simon & Schuster
May 2007
On Sale: May 8, 2007
448 pages ISBN: 0684857057 EAN: 9780684857053 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History | Non-Fiction
From the acclaimed bestselling author of The
Conquerors Michael
Beschloss has brought us a brilliantly readable and
inspiring saga about crucial times in America's history when
a courageous President dramatically changed the future of
the United States. With surprising new sources
and a dazzling command of history and human character,
Beschloss brings to life these flawed, complex men -- and
their wives, families, friends and foes. Never have we had a
more intimate, behind-the-scenes view of Presidents coping
with the supreme dilemmas of their lives. You
will be in the room with the private George Washington,
braving threats of impeachment and assassination to make
peace with England. John Adams, incurring his party's
"unrelenting hatred" by refusing to fight France and warning
his enemies, "Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."
Andrew Jackson, in a death struggle against the corrupt Bank
of the United States. Abraham Lincoln, risking his
Presidency to insist that slaves be
freed. Beschloss also shows us Theodore
Roosevelt, taunting J. P. Morgan and the Wall Street leaders
who dominated his party. Franklin Roosevelt, defying the
isolationists -- and maybe the law -- to stop Adolf Hitler.
Harry Truman, risking a walkout by top officials to
recognize a Jewish state. John Kennedy, the belated champion
of civil rights, complaining that he has cost himself a
second term. And finally, two hundred years after
Washington, Ronald Reagan, irking some of his oldest backers
to seek an end to the Cold War. As Beschloss
shows in this gripping and important book, none of these
Presidents was eager to incur ridicule, vilification or
threats of political destruction and even assassination. But
in the end, bolstered by friends and family, hidden private
beliefs and, sometimes, religious faith, each ultimately
proved himself to be, in Andrew Jackson's words, "born for
the storm."
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