Girl, 13: A Global Snapshot of Generation E

My compliments to the authors of this book. It is quite a useful and readable overview of our presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush. My compliments as well to the previous reviewer, Solomon. He has thoroughly and skillfully described the authors' style and structure used to profile each president. Please give this reviewer a "helpful" vote as I have done. I'll add just one comment. This book is a great companion volume to a presidential biography. Some time spent with the John Adams chapter, for example, will provide you with a preview--an "advance organizer," if you will--to structure your understanding of a complex work like David McCullough's John Adams. You will enjoy any president's biography more with one of this book's chapters at hand. Readers who enjoy these profiles may also like the perspective on presidential parents in Doug Wead's The Raising of a President: The Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation's Leaders. Those interested in the personalities of our nation's leaders may enjoy Rubenzer and Faschingbauer's Personality, Character, and Leadership In The White House: Psychologists Assess the Presidents.

This is a good overview of the Presidents of the US. It would make a good gift for a student; from high school through college and for anyone interested in American history. Each president is covered in from four to ten pages, depending upon the number of terms that he served. Each president is covered using the same format. The review begins with a half page summary of his term or terms and biographical facts, including: birth and death data, ancestry, information about his mother, father, wife or wives, children, military service, religious affiliation, age at inauguration, profession before and after the presidency, place of burial, nickname and writings. Opposite to this first page is a full-page painting or photograph of the president. Information about their elections is provided as well as the members of their administrations. There is a section about their wives or social hostess (for the widowers and the one bachelor). Information about scandals is provided, as are political cartoons and additional photographs of the president or significant events that occurred during his presidency. There is a list of a few quotes by the president and about him (about evenly divided between complementary and derogatory). The bulk of each section is occupied with a chronology of the events that occurred during their presidency and a time line of events in their life and events in US and European history. All is all, a tremendous amount of information is provided, but given the limitation of the space allotted and the space given over to pictures the information is just an outline of the presidency. The outline format, while suffering from not being an in-depth study has the advantage of bring out many comparisons that would be buried in a more detailed book. For instance, there is a common thread regarding the development of a national bank and regarding the issue of slavery. This is a great reference book if you want to know the most important details of the life and term in office of each president. It is also a quick and entertaining read and one, which I am sure, will provide at least a few new facts for most every reader.