White House History

The Presidents and the Pastime draws on Curt Smith's extensive background as a former White House presidential speechwriter to chronicle the historic relationship between baseball, the "most American" sport, and the US presidency. Smith, who USA Today calls "America's voice of authority on baseball broadcasting", starts before America's birth, when would be presidents played baseball antecedents. He charts how baseball cemented its reputation as America's pastime in the 19th century and tracks every US president from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump

On December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and prompted the United States’ entry into the bloodiest war in human history. Americans have long debated the cause of the bombing; many have argued that the attack was a brilliant Japanese military coup or a failure of US intelligence agencies or even a conspiracy of the Roosevelt administration. But despite the attention historians have paid to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the truth about that fateful day has remained a mystery - until now.

During their eight years in the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton worked together more closely than the public ever knew. Their intertwined personal and professional lives had far-reaching consequences–for politics, domestic policy, and international affairs–and their marital troubles...

Veteran White House reporter April Ryan thought she had seen everything in her two decades as a White House correspondent. And then came the Trump administration. In Under Fire, Ryan takes us inside the confusion and chaos of the Trump White House to understand how she and other reporters adjusted to the new normal. She takes us inside the policy debates, the revolving door of personnel appointments, and what it is like when she, as a reporter asking difficult questions, finds herself in the spotlight, becoming part of the story.

With chapters on every woman who’s ever made it to the White House, Secret Lives of the First Ladies tackles all of the tough questions that other history books are afraid to ask: How many of these women owned slaves? Which ones were cheating on their husbands? And why was Eleanor Roosevelt serving hot dogs to the King and Queen of England? American history was never this much fun in school

No one man or woman has ever been in a position to see the presidents, and the presidency, so intimately, over so many years. They called him in for photo opportunities. They called for comfort. They asked about death and salvation; about sin and forgiveness. At a time when the nation is...

A revelatory new biography of one of the most misunderstood and vilified First Ladies in American history: Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary Lincoln was at the center of politics at a time when society’s expectations for women were rigid and circumscribed. The product of Southern aristocracy, she grew...

An award-winning presidential historian offers an authoritative account of American presidents' attacks on our freedom of the press. “The FAKE NEWS media,” Donald Trump has tweeted, “is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Has our free press ever faced as great a threat?...

With the nation at war in the 1940s, twenty-two-year-old Jack Valenti flew fifty-one combat missions as the pilot of a B-25 attack bomber with the 12th Air Force based in Italy. In the 1960s, with the nation reeling from the assassination of a beloved president and becoming embroiled in a far...

A thrilling dive into the little-known, darker side of a revered president’s history, Lincoln’s Lie untangles the threads behind a mysterious 1864 newspaper article to reveal how Lincoln manipulated the media during the Civil War, shining new light onto today’s issues of fake news and presidential conflict with the press.

In April 1962, President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy hosted 49 Nobel Prize winners - along with many other prominent scientists, artists, and writers - at a famed White House dinner. Held at the height of the Cold War, the dinner symbolizes a time when intellectuals were esteemed, divergent viewpoints could be respectfully discussed at the highest level, and the great minds of an age might all dine together in the rarefied glamour of "the people's house."

For 36 years, from Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt, Tom Pendel saw the daily comings and goings at the center of American political life in the White House. As doorkeeper, he saw senators, congressmen, royalty, citizens, and scoundrels appear on the White House steps.

During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration--from 1848 to 1943--San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, bestselling author Julia Flynn Siler...

Fifty years of service at the White House in various capacities, including bodyguard to Abraham Lincoln, William H. Crook's memoir brings an astonishing array of personal details of life in the executive mansion. His sensitive observations of Lincoln are especially moving.

In Presidents in Crisis, a former director of the Situation Room takes the listener inside the White House during 17 grave international emergencies handled by the presidents from Truman to Obama: from North Korea's invasion of South Korea to the revolutions of the Arab Spring, and from the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the taking of American diplomats hostage in Iran and George W. Bush's response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Born into bondage in 1818, Elizabeth Keckley was able to purchase her freedom only after years of saving. She then went on to build a thriving business as a seamstress, eventually becoming modiste to Mary Todd Lincoln herself. In this dressmaking role, Keckley was a close confidante of Mary Todd, and her 1868 memoir recounted her incredible rise while also providing revelatory insights into everyday life among the Lincolns.

A story about the trials and triumphs of a Black chef from Queens, New York, and a White media entrepreneur from Staten Island who built a relationship and a restaurant in the Deep South, hoping to bridge biases and get people talking about race, gender, class, and culture. NAMED ONE OF THE...

This New York Times bestseller shares the rich history of the White House grounds, revealing how the story of the garden is also the story of America. The 18-acres surrounding the White House have been an unwitting witness to history—kings and queens have dined there, bills and treaties have...

The young adult edition of the unconventionally honest, deeply personal, and sharply funny account from Michigan governor and rising Democratic star Gretchen Whitmer “will appeal to readers interested in politics and those seeking insights on leadership and attaining success” (Kirkus...

A sweeping, sensational novel of America’s first “It Girl,” whose dramatic journey to center stage echoes through the decades—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post At the dawn of the twentieth century, New York’s streets teem with change...