Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 | 
| Author: Michael R. Beschloss
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  62 reviews
Sales Rank: 234513
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0743257448
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.099
EAN: 9780743257442
ASIN: 0743257448
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
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Condition: Brand New and Unused. Remainder marks to the bottom edge.
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Product Description
Presidential Courage is a brilliantly readable and inspiring saga about crucial times in American history when a courageous President dramatically changed our future. Like Beschloss's previous book, The Conquerors, it was a New York Times bestseller for months.With surprising new sources and a dazzling command of history and human character, Beschloss brings to life those 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. For Americans who must choose Presidents and assess them once they are elected, Presidential Courage sets a lasting standard by showing us the best in Presidential leadership.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 57 more reviews...
 Unreadable & badly off-target much of the time July 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
How did Michael Beschloss get to be "America's Leading Presidential Historian?" I can only assume it is because he has a talent for getting himself on TV again & again...because it certainly isn't because of dreadful efforts such as this.
Setting content aside for a moment --- how can any literate person regard this as well written? It reads like a Power Point presentation, or more specifically, like research notes which were never revised into a coherent narrative. It's hard to have narrative at all when your chapters are only 5 pages long! Suffice it to say, I found the writing to be such an irritant that I ultimately never finished the book. Life is too short to read crappy writing.
As for the content itself, this is all ground which has been well-covered many times before and Beschloss' conclusions are generally quite unremarkable. When he isn't stating the obvious, Beschloss is dumbing down the subject matter to make it appear more simple than it really was.
Just as an example, I would point to Andrew Jackson & the Bank War. Exactly how is this courageous? Jackson was enjoying tremendous popular support when he went in for the kill against the 2nd BUS, and he was as convinced of his own rectitude as any man ever has. Also, it is grossly inaccurate to characterize the 2nd BUS as corrupt. Nicholas may have been a ruthless autocrat, but nobody could accuse him of corruption. That label would be more accurately applied to Jackson's "pet banks" into which Jackson put government deposits, and which were largely responsible for the catastrophic Panic of 1837. Does Beschloss provide anything more than the most shallow of analysis? Of course not.
I never would have purchased this in the first place, but it was part of a book club shipment which I opened by mistake, thinking that it was another (better-written) book. It was only the first of many regrets.
 Flawed Men Finding the Strength to Do Great Things June 29, 2008
Like the rest of us, our Presidents have been flawed people -- each with his own limitations, prejudices, and conflicts. And yet, through our history, at times these men have risen above their limitations to exert extraordinary leadership: grasping a moral imperative with uncommon clarity, and finding the strength and passion to use the powers of the office to follow that moral imperative despite great risk to their own political fortunes -- and, in some cases, to their very lives.
"Presidential Courage" tells the stories behind nine such moments of courageous leadership. In none of them is the protagonist portrayed as an all-knowing superhero. In each, we see the President wrestle with a challenge in a profoundly human way -- beset by the uncertainties, self-doubts, pride and fear that are familiar to all who struggle with a moral dilemma. In each case, the President ultimately comes to the painful decision that the right course of action is contrary to what his advisors recommend or public opinion demands. And yet he chooses to throw himself into the breach.
The author's research is impressive, drawing upon unpublished papers and (for President Reagan) interviews with people who witnessed personal dimensions behind publicly reported events. As a result, the stories contain many human details that do not make it into our school curriculum or popular awareness. These details are not always flattering. Kennedy, for example, is portrayed as being dragged only reluctantly to the "right" side of racial equality. And for Truman, his own anti-semitic bias was a key obstacle that he had to overcome. But to a large degree it is precisely the humanity of the way these men struggled with -- and triumphed over -- their personal limitations that gives these stories such inspirational impact.
One aspect of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the transitions between chapters. The author searches out connections between these men, suggesting almost spiritual ways in which the legacies of past Presidents have in effect enabled them to reach forward through time to inspire their successors. It gives hope that the best moments in our presidential history will yet empower future leaders, at least from time to time, to rise above their limitations to achieve great things as well.
 Not That Engaging June 24, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had high expectations for this book. It let me down a little. It just wasn't that engaging. Some of it is very well known like JFK's battle with civil rights. I was looking for a good analysis on the different presidents and their actions. I didn't find that. I found that Mr. Beschloss just told about the different incident but didn't offer any new insight to it. I was hoping that he would even use them to give perspective on what is happening now but he didn't. I rated this book 3 stars because he does include several presidents and topics that I was unaware of. For that it was worth my time reading it. This is a very basic book so I would recommend it to people that are wanting to learn about the presidents and their thought processes concerning major events in their presidencies.
Sad commentary on the decline of American education June 9, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I agree with all the negative reviews of this book, which I found profoundly disappointing. Indeed, as I have indicated in the title of this review, the book actually depressed me as a sign of just how ill-educated the general American reading public has become. The entire book read like the academic equivalent of cotton candy. You don't have to be a trained academician to be disappointed with Bescholoss's mamby-pamby history-for-the-masses style. Other popular historians such as Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals), Joseph Ellis (His Excellency George Washington, Founding Brothers), David McCullough (John Adams, Truman) and Walter Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin) all run rings around Bescholoss in terms of the depth and weight they bring to their books, without sacrificing readability and enjoyability in the slightest.
To me, the most damning aspect of Beschloss' pathetic entry in the popular history market is his tendency to give such short shrift to knotty historical details as to render his statements misleading or even false. One of the most egregious examples occurs in a chapter on Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, where Bescholoss writes: "[That] July, he [Lincoln] summoned his Cabinet and read them his draft of a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. On New Year's 1863, 'all persons held as slaves within any state' would become 'forever' free." (page 109) This is the closest Bescholoss ever comes in the book to telling the reader what the Emancipation Proclamation actually said. Actually, the full text was as follows: "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Beschloss simply omits any discussion of the fact Lincoln's proclamation only freed the slaves in the Confederacy, over which he had no actual power, and failed to free the slaves in the Union slave states over which he did have power (specifically, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and West Virginia).
One is left with the unmistakeable impression that Bescholoss either doesn't have the patience to go into the political and strategic reasons Lincoln had for making this distinction; or else Beschloss doesn't think his readers are clever or patient enough to understand such a historical analysis. Either way, the complete absence of any discussion of more subtle issues like this demands a poor review for this overly pretentious book.
Don't Waste Your Time April 18, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Rely on the professional reviewers, ignore the customer reviews (except this one, of course) and do not waste your time with this sad effort. Not an ounce of original thought here, just a collection of quoted "sound bites" gathered from books by others who have done their research, and strung together in paragraphs that rarely exceed 6 lines. The readers who praised this one must be regular readers of USA Today and used to an intellectual life that happens in sound bites! The presidents reviewed here include Washington, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, etc. Did none of the lesser known Presidents do anything courageous? Surely they did. But as less has been written about those presidents, there are fewer of those "sound bites" available about them. I am willing to bet that Beschloss did little for this book except edit the work of the research assistants who found the quotes and strung them together. I would have quit reading this less than twenty pages in had it not been a selection for my book discussion group. As I am going to pan the book big time at book club, I was forced to read the whole awful thing. Unless you have such a reason, skip this and read something worth your time.
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