The American Presidents - Life, Career & Legacy

This biographical styled book by J.J. Collins - Author of James Madison – The Father Of The Constitution (1751 – 1836) and Famine to Freedom – The Irish in the American Civil War. Collins explores the lives, careers, and legacies of the men to have held the Office of the President of the United States, and led this amazing country since its inception up until the present day. The book provides an insight into the lives of the men before they ascended to the most prestigious and demanding political office in the world, the key challenges and decisions each man faced and a reflective piece on each president and how history has viewed them over the course of time. The President of the United States of America is granted significant powers by the Constitution and exercises others by tradition and precedent. However, success exercising these powers has varied widely from one President to the next. Harnessing the powers of the presidency and managing the sprawling executive branch takes a great deal of skill and determination. For all the powers of the Presidency, the most important power of all may be simply the power to persuade. Given the numerous obstacles to the exercise of presidential power, from the separation of powers to a recalcitrant bureaucracy to public opinion, Presidents that cannot persuade others in the political system to support them and their agendas are likely to have little, if any, success. This book will show that over the course of time that only a rare few Presidents, like Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Reagan have been skilled at persuading both politicians and the people and have been overwhelmingly successful. In some cases, a few have been unfortunate to have failed at both.