Book : Presidential Courage Brave Leaders And How They...

-Titulo Original : Presidential Courage Brave Leaders And How They Changed America 1789-1989

-Fabricante :

Simon & Schuster

-Descripcion Original:

Presidential Courage is a brilliantly readable and inspiring saga about crucial times in American history when a courageous President dramatically changed our future. Like Beschlosss 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. Review Michael Beschloss...is clearly the most widely recognized Presidential historian in the nation.... Most Presidential historians...content themselves with writing biographies of individual Presidents.... And Beschloss has done that too.... But if any book can be said to epitomize the genre of Presidential history, Presidential Courage does. -- Mary Beth Norton, The New York Times Book Review About the Author Michael Beschloss has been called the nations leading Presidential historian by Newsweek. He has written nine books on American Presidents and is NBC News Presidential Historian, as well as contributor to PBSs The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Presidential CourageBrave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989By Michael R. BeschlossSimon & SchusterCopyright © 2008 Michael R. BeschlossAll right reserved.ISBN: 9780743257442Chapter OneA Speedy Death to General Washington!In August 1795, at Mount Vernon, drenched by what he called a violent Rain, George Washington nervously paced down a garden path, elegantly covered by crushed oyster shells.He was desperate to return to the national capital of Philadelphia, but the biblical torrents had washed out roads and bridges. Adding to his frustration, his mail had been cut off.Back inside, as the rains pelted his red shingle roof, spinning the dove-of-peace weathervane, the President bent over his candlelit desk, dipped a quill in black ink and tensely scratched out letter after letter. He was feeling serious anxiety in a time of trouble and perplexities.For twenty years, since the start of the Revolution, he had taken as his due the bands playing The Hero Comes! and the lightstruck Americans cheering the man who unites all hearts. His anointment as President by the Electoral College in 1788 and 1792 had been unanimous.But now the national adoration for Washington was fading. Americans had learned that a secret treaty negotiated by his envoy John Jay made demands that many found humiliating. One member of Congress said the fury against that damned treaty was moving like an electric velocity to every state in the Union.As the public tempest had swelled, some wanted Washington impeached. Cartoons showed the President being marched to a guillotine. Even in the Presidents beloved Virginia, Revolutionary veterans raised glasses and cried, A speedy Death to General Washington!With the national surge of anger toward Washington, some Americans complained that he was living as luxuriously as George III, the monarch they had fought a revolution to escape. Using old forgeries, several columnists insisted that Washington had been secretly bribed during the war by British agents.Still others charged that the President stole military credit from soldiers who had bled and died: With what justice do you monopolize the glories of the American Revolution?Reeling from the blows, the sixty-three-year-old Washington wrote that the infamous scribblers were calling him a common pickpocket in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero.One still-friendly gaze