American Heritage History of the Presidents Washington to Van Buren

Book excerpt: The best way to examine the presidency now, writes the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bruce Catton, "is to examine the lives and personalities of the men who have held it, because the presidency today is in many ways the sum of large and small contributions made by the different presidents." Here, in the first volume of American Heritage's history of presidents are the dramatic stories of the first eight men to hold the office: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.