Washington

10 best books like Washington (Douglas Southall Freeman): A People's History of the United States, Writings, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788, Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography, Andrew Johnson: A Biography, The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution

A People's History of the United States

Author	Howard Zinn
ISBN	0060838655

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s iconic A People's History of the United States “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.” Packed with vivid details and telling quotations, Zinn’s...

Writings

Author

George Washington

For two centuries, George Washington has stood “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” universally acknowledged as the one indispensable founder of the American republic. This Library of America volume—the most extensive and authoritative one-volume collection...

Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution

Author	Jack N. Rakove
ISBN	0679781218

From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so,...

Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788

Author	Pauline Maier
ISBN	0684868547

When the delegates left the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in September 1787, the new Constitution they had written was no more than a proposal. Elected conventions in at least nine of the thirteen states would have to ratify it before it could take effect. There was reason to doubt whether...

Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation

Author	Richard Norton Smith
ISBN	0395855128

Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation is a book about George Washington that follows a unique formula. For this book is about President George Washington as opposed to General George Washington. The purpose is to give readers and understanding in early constitutional government...

Benjamin Franklin

Author	Carl Van Doren
ISBN	0140152601

Among my bibliophile friends, is a subset who enjoy historical biographies. A friend loaned me this bio of Benjamin Franklin, a 1939 Pulitzer winner that occupies >800 dense pages. I flinched, but Steve loved it, so I put my head down and tucked in.

Other than facts learned in grade school,...

Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography

Author	Merrill D. Peterson
ISBN	0195019091

The definitive life of Jefferson in one volume, this biography relates Jefferson's private life and thought to his prominent public position and reveals the rich complexity of his development. As Peterson explores the dominant themes guiding Jefferson's career--democracy, nationality, and...

Andrew Johnson: A Biography

Author	Hans L. Trefousse
ISBN	0393317420

http://bestpresidentialbios.com/2014/...

“Andrew Johnson: A Biography” by Hans Trefousse was published in 1989. Trefousse was a historian, author and professor at Brooklyn College for several decades. He was considered a dean of the Reconstruction era and authored nearly a dozen...

The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson

Author	Kevin J. Hayes
ISBN	0195307585

Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer--a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life...

Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution

Author	Richard Beeman
ISBN	1400065704

The popular view of the Constitution is pretty well expressed by John Milton, and I'll quote it here:God, from the Mount of Sinai, whose gray top shall tremble, He descending, will Himself, in thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets' sound, ordain them laws.
-Paradise LostWell, G-d did it through...

Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution

Author	James M. McPherson
ISBN	0195076060

James McPherson has emerged as one of America's finest historians. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times Book Review, called "history writing of the highest order." In that volume, McPherson gathered...