Star-Spangled Men: America's Ten Worst Presidents

by Nathan Miller

Book Overview

Picking America's best presidents is easy. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt usually lead the list, But choosing the nation's worst presidents requires more thought. In Star-Spangled Men, respected presidential biographer Nathan Miller puts on display those leaders who were abject failures as chief executive. With pointed humor and a deft hand, he presents a rogues' gallery of the men who dropped the presidential...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684852063
• ISBN13: 9780684852065
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

What a joy this is!

I have to say, as a Presidential trivia buff, this book is bully! Not only does it explain why these fellows made the bottom 10 list, but it also gives us plenty of wonderful trivia on all these men. And it is written in a very entertaining way. I couldn't put it down (I even read it twice). Where else can I get such a potent chapter on Franklin Pierce or Benjamin Harrison? And to those that think this thing is biased: do not be absurd. Dems and GOPers are both raked over the coals of damnation.

Read this before you vote, don't fall for media hipe

This book helps you absorb a lot of material in 248 fast pages. The last 10 pages may be the best. A chapter on the 2 most overrated Presidents. Jefferson purchased 8 additional slaves While President! Also his terrible hatred of Alexander Hamilton, one of our real hero's. Read Alexander Hamilton, by BrookhiserAlexander Hamilton, American I bought The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 to confirm what Nathan Miller wrote. And a surprise, JFK. The start of Vietnam, initially cool toward civil rights struggles (Bobby Kennedy was the real force), too many women, and his enduring contribution, raising the curtain on the age of political imagery. I read several books about the Kennedy's, including the lost older brother. (I think that was the Lost Prince?) If you like those three books you also might like Scam, Jesse Peterson Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America, Vital Remnants: America's Founding and the Western Tradition, and AMERICA'S REAL WAR

Great Book! A pleasure to read! Inciteful!

Nathan Miller gives you a better grasp of each President's personality in 10 pages than alot of writers do in 1,000. He is a brilliant writer, and this book definitely shows you some of the pitfalls of our worst ten.

When I can't make sense of other books, this one reveals.

My son and I are home schooling and we always use a minimum of three sources when we study people. Luckily this book is one of our sources for the ten worst presidents. Invariably, this book makes understandable what some of the others don't--for example, why Andrew Johnson is among the ten; some of our other books seemingly only convey that Johnson continued in the footsteps of Lincoln's vision of reconstruction! Nathan Miller's descriptions of all of these men are true studies in how good men (and in some cases, not-so-good men) can become very bad presidents. There's a lot to learn between these book covers. Sandy Kalman