Eyewitness Presidents

By James Barber and James G. Barber

Book Overview

An informative and visual guide to America's highest office, this DK Eyewitness book explores the history of the White House and the presidents who have served in it.

Written in association with the Smithsonian Institution, this beautiful visual reference book provides mini-biographies and trivia for budding historians, along with hundreds of photos that illustrate the lives of Presidents that shaped American history.

Students and teachers alike will find intriguing facts in this comprehensive history book. Each president's feature starts with their early lives and takes the reader through their political careers. Discover how they came into office and what happened after they won their presidential elections. Be an eyewitness to the history of the inhabitants of the White House through full-color photographs of famous paintings, campaign memorabilia, handwritten letters, and even historical artifacts belonging to each President.

As the first person to be called the President of the United States, George Washington helped unite the colonies and win independence from King George of Great Britain. Learn about his revolutionary leadership and the forging of the Constitution. Discover how Abraham Lincoln saved the Union from the American Civil War, and how Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the nation with the Louisiana Purchase.

The book includes a section of presidential speeches such as John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech. Read about other 20th century presidents such George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and the first Black president Barack Obama. This new edition introduces America's newest Commander-in-chief Joe Biden.

The History of the US Presidents From George Washington to Joe Biden

DK Eyewitness Books: Presidents uses a unique integrated format with text and pictures to give insight into the lives of the men that have held the highest position in the USA. Eyewitness educational books are a favorite for school-aged students, parents, and teachers alike.

Inside this fascinating visual reference book:

- Includes a feature on every American President in history - right up to Joe Biden
- Presidential facts and trivia in bite-sized information that is easy to follow for younger readers
- Hundreds of photos of famous artworks, historical artifacts, and handwritten letters
- Includes a section on some of history's famous American political speeches

More from DK Books:

For more interesting facts about American Presidents look for DK Books The Presidents Visual Encyclopedia. If you enjoy DK Eyewitness Books: Presidents there are over 170 Eyewitness titles to choose from, covering a large variety of topics. For more history reference books DK Eyewitness: Victorians, DK Eyewitness: Aztec, and DK Eyewitness: World War I - just a few of the titles available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0744039738
• ISBN13: 9780744039733
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Incorporated
• Length: 72 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.8" x 11.3"
• Age Range: 10 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 5 and higher

Customer Reviews

Informative and Interesting

I ordered this book to read myself and then give to my six-year-old grandson. I had just finished watching the John Adams series on DVD and it prompted me to want to read more about past presidents. I showed this book to my grandson when it arrived and he immediately wanted to sit down and have me read it to him. It is full of interesting facts. Also, the poster in the back of the book will be great for him to put on his wall when he is studying history in school. With all the visuals, this is a great book to get youngsters interested in history. I highly recommend it.

Great for kids and adults alike

I especially like this as a quick review of the presidents. My daughter got this book as a gift for her 7th birthday although I had actually read it to her once before when she was 6. Even her sister listened to me read it when she was around 4 or 5. This book makes it easy to get your kids interested in the presidents with its concise captions and short synopses of each president. For example, my daughters really like the part about Teddy Roosevelt having teddy bears created in his honor, looking at George Washington's false teeth, and trying to recognize the presidents on our currency.

An illustrated journey from Washington to Clinton

I got really excited for a moment when I say that this DK Eyewitness Book on the "Presidents" was written by James Barber, because I thought this would be James David Barber, the reknown Presidential scholar. Instead it turns out to be James G. Barber, who does a nice job of bringing out the details for all of the Presidents from Washington to Clinton. The book talks about Clinton's impeachment but does not get as far as the 2000 election (the year the book was published). My expectation was that this book would look at the office as well as the men, but the organizational structure is a strictly chronology. Young readers get a sense for the relative importance of each President whether or not they get a "chapter" to themself and if they get just one or a pair of two-page spreads. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt all get four page spreads (and they are the ones on our coins). Theodore Roosevelts gets three pages with William Howard Taft getting the four in the "chapter," which makes perfect sense once you know their history. Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton all get two pages apiece, which shows an understandable bias towards the Presidents of our lifetime. The format, as everyone who has enjoyed these DK Eyewitness books knows, is to provide a two page spread that is divided into a couple of paragraphs of text along with multiple illustrations on each page with detailed captions (these books set the standard for providing informative captions). For example, the spread on Ronald Reagan has one paragraph of text talking about his main achievements in office and another on the facing page talking about the "Challenger" shuttle disaster. The dominant illustrations are a painting of Reagan that appeared on the cover of "Time" and a space shuttle taking off, but there is also photos of a Reagan-Bush belt buckle for the 1984 campaign, Reagan and his chimp co-star from "Bedtime for Bonzo," a picture of the assassination attempt, Reagan with Mikhail Gorbachev, Oliver North testifying, and Nancy Reagan and her "Just say no to drugs" campaign. A information block identies his term in office, birth information, age at innaguration, First Lady, and children (blocks for other presidents list key events in their presidency as well as information about when and where they died).The results are a series of brief introductions to the various presidents in which the illustrations underscore the highlights of each administration and the things that made them unique (e.g., FDR's dog Fala). Actually, for those who have read more standard juvenile biographies of various presidents this book will probably be more interesting because the pictures it provides get beyond the standard photographs to personal and political artifacts. For example, you will see lots of campaign posters, pins, and o

Treasure!

I'm a teacher who used this book during our class coverage of Election 2000. This book really helped the kids understand more about the Presidents of the past and what they did during their terms to make life in America better. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about our Presidents.

Super Guide!

Wow! What an awesome resource for facts about our presidents. Kids will delight in discovering interesting and obscure facts about presidents in all the little sidebars! A super resource guide or a perfect book for browsing through and re-browsing through again and again!