Confronting the Presidents: No Spin Assessments from Washington to Biden

What is the effect of including everyday details about presidents’ personal lives, such as their choice of breakfast foods or the details of their childhoods? How does this contribute to readers’ understanding of history? Discuss some examples of how personal details reflect their presidencies and broader political and social issues.

Historians debate whether history is shaped primarily by influential individuals or by broader social, cultural, economic, and environmental factors (i.e., slavery, the Great Depression, the rise of the Soviet Union, the emergence of the AIDS virus in the 1980s). Where does Confronting the Presidents stand in this debate? Discuss any examples of an individual president changing the course of history and/or a president being unable to transcend external historical factors.

Since Confronting the Presidents includes biographies of 46 presidents, each biography is necessarily brief. How did the authors choose the most salient details, accomplishments, or problems from that president’s life and administration? How do these choices convey the author’s values and priorities as historians?

How does Confronting the Presidents describe the role of the first lady? How has this role changed over time, and how has it remained the same?

Co-author Bill O’Reilly is a well-known conservative political commentator, and in Confronting the Presidents itself, co-author Martin Dugard states that he is a “liberal” (396). What political biases are evident in the book, and do those biases undermine the book’s claims? Discuss how you think historians should approach bias, especially when discussing near-present or contemporary topics that are still contentious.

How has the power of the presidency evolved over time? How much has that power been shaped by crises, such as the debate over slavery or World War II? What is the relationship between the presidency’s power and the United States’ status as a global power?

The authors present polarization as a recurring problem throughout the history of the United States, from the disputes between supporters of the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans to the present-day tensions between so-called blue and red states. To what degree can presidents be blamed for division or credited for promoting unity?

Do you agree with the authors that the success or failure of a presidency is shaped, at least partially, by that president’s personality and moral characteristics? Why or why not?