The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America’s Best--and Worst--Chief Executives

by Brian Lamb, Susan Swain, Douglas Brinkley (Introduction)

The complete rankings of our best -- and worst -- presidents, based on C-SPAN's much-cited Historians Surveys of Presidential Leadership.
Over a period of decades, C-SPAN has surveyed leading historians on the best and worst of America's presidents across a variety of categories -- their ability to persuade the public, their leadership skills, the moral authority, and more. The crucible of the presidency has forged some of the very best and very worst leaders in our national history, along with much in between.

Based on interviews conducted over the years with a variety of presidential biographers, this book provides not just a complete ranking of our presidents, but stories and analyses that capture the character of the men who held the office. From Abraham Lincoln's political savvy and rhetorical gifts to James Buchanan's indecisiveness, this book teaches much about what makes a great leader--and what does not.


As America looks ahead to our next election, this book offers perspective and criteria that may help us choose our next leader wisely.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Presidents, Politics, Biography, American History, Historical

Audiobook

Published October 1, 2019

About the author

Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN, currently serves as the C-SPAN Networks' Executive Chairman. Since C-SPAN's founding in 1979, Brian has been a regular on-camera presence, interviewing all presidents since Reagan and many world leaders, members of Congress, journalists and authors. Over 15 years beginning in 1989, Brian interviewed 801 nonfiction authors for a weekly series called "Booknotes." Currently, Brian hosts "Q & A," a Sunday evening, hour-long interview program with people who are making things happen in the public sphere.

Six books of collected Brian Lamb interviews have been published by PublicAffairs based on the "Booknotes" and "Q & A" series, most recently, "Sundays at Eight." And in 2010, PublicAffairs published "The Supreme Court," a collection of interviews Brian and C-SPAN colleague Susan Swain conducted with eleven current and former Supreme Court justices. C-SPAN's 10th book with PublicAffairs, "The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America's Best - and Worst - Chief Executives," was published in spring 2019.

Brian's work with C-SPAN has been recognized with the Presidential Medal of Honor and the National Humanities Medal. In 2011, Purdue University, Brian's alma mater, announced the naming of the Brian Lamb School of Communication.

Brian is a longtime resident of Arlington, Virginia. When he's not devouring newspapers, websites, nonfiction books, or Thai food at his favorite local restaurant, Brian is likely in hot pursuit of the latest country music release.

Reviews

[Peter Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

The end of the year and especially the end of a decade is a time for lists. I thought I would use the most popular ranking of presidents to spark a discussion. You can view the latest rankings here:
https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurve...
I wanted to see how the presidents I have been reading about stack up for historians and to make up for skipping biographies of America’s lesser presidents. I view folks who read at least one biography of each president the same way I see through hikers of the Appalachian Trail: My hat is off to you, but I’ll settle for the highlights.

I only recognized the names of about a dozen of the 91 participants in the 2017 survey:
https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurve...
Participants evaluated each president on a 1-10 scale for each of ten leadership qualities, ranging from moral authority and crisis leadership to economic management and international relations. Each quality is weighted equally. The overall score determines a president’s ranking.

C-SPAN has been conducting surveys of presidential historians for almost 20 years and has interviewed hundreds for its cable TV station. The book based on the 2017 survey includes chapters by some of the leading presidential historians, including Robert Caro, Ron Chernow, Robert Dallek, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ronald White and Gordon Wood. My favorite chapter was Douglas Brinkley’s “A Brief History of Presidential Rankings,” which reviews the evolution of rankings over the past century.

Overall, I was disappointed with the book. Each chapter is based on a TV interview, which makes the writing seem overly conversational. I found the brackets used to indicate text included after the interview to be extremely distracting. The chapters are also uneven. Most focus on a particular author’s book (the Obama chapter focuses on his ex-girlfriends). Some are outdated (the Jefferson interview is from 1993--before the DNA tests proving the Jefferson-Hemmings relationship). Still, the book was useful when I read a biography of John Quincy Adams as he met with several of his successors, including William Henry Harrison, who died after a month in office.

What I would really like to discuss is the rankings. Lincoln is ranked first--no surprises there. I think you could make an equally strong argument for FDR, but the 2017 rankings place him third behind Washington. What I have trouble understanding is how JFK and Reagan could make the Top 10 and Woodrow Wilson did not. JFK was short on accomplishments and Iran-Contra should disqualify Reagan from a top spot. I also can’t understand how George W. Bush is not in the bottom 5 or at least the bottom 10. He has the blood of the over 4,400 American soldiers killed in Iraq on his hands. How can he be ranked five slots ahead of William Henry Harrison, who’s only mistake was not wearing a coat to his inauguration???

Meanwhile, a majority of Republicans recently evaluated Trump to be a greater president than Lincoln. Something tells me historians will not be so kind.

[Donald Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very entertaining and educational book. One hundred historical/presidential authorities ranked the presidents in various categories. Each chapter was an essay (based on a CSPAN television appearance) for each president, starting with the highest to the lowest. Each little essay is unique but with similar bare information about each. It is not a book to learn all about each president but it is a good, interesting discussion of each. There was a lot of cross references and therefore was a good history book. There is some analysis by the authors/interviewees. I enjoyed this book and the discussions about what makes or breaks a president in the eyes of historians.

[Randal White · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting review of all 44 of the American Presidents, ranking them in order of first to last (Trump has not been in office long enough to be given a rating).
Each president is given a chapter, and the information compiled by C-SPAN. The ratings were given by a team of 91 presidential historians. The ratings were based on a set of ten qualities of presidential leadership. They were: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all, and performance within the context of the times.
I was not surprised by the "top ten" presidents. I mean, how can you go wrong in selecting giants such as Lincoln, Washington, or the Roosevelts? Nor was I shocked to see the bottom of the barrel, including James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, or Millard Fillmore. What was interesting were those presidents in the middle, and why they were ranked there.
Each chapter has great tidbits about the presidents, items on their early years, their beliefs, their quirks, and the people they selected to help them run the country.
I believe that this book would be a great one for anybody interested in our history. Rather than read 44 books on each one of the presidents, one could read this and get a good background on each one. I especially could see this book being used in a upper year high school civics class, or an introductory college level class. The high school teacher could assign a chapter to each student, and have them give a report to the rest of the class. So much better than they could get from Wikipedia!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and will be referring to it in the future.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Presidents, as the title implies, is about the C-Span Presidential rankings with commentary from historians, albeit some of the contributors are not historians like Amity Shlaes. This book covers from George Washington to Barack Obama. This book is not bad by any stretch. I do not agree with the rankings of some of the presidents. Having said that, just because I disagree does not mean I dislike a book. I have read books by historians with whom I had disagreements with. The important thing is I learn new information, and I did. There is so much out there on Washington, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and you can easily fill a library on these men alone. How many books are there on Millard Fillmore? Benjamin Harrison? We all know the answer to that. I enjoy reading about the lesser-known presidents and learning what they did. I learned about their strengths and weaknesses. William Henry Harrison, for example, started the presidential campaign we know today. It is not a book you have to read in order, and if you just want to read something quickly before going to sleep like If eel sometimes, you can just pick a president and read about him. It is a good reference book, and you can jump around. As I stated before, I do not agree with everything in the book, it is a fun read and provides information about the presidents that I did not know prior.

[Gary Anderson]

The Presidents is one of C-SPAN’s high-quality publications derived from its BookTV and other interview programming. This volume runs on two tracks. The first track is a ranking of American presidents from George Washington (#2) through Barack Obama (#12) based on how a wide range of historians view each president’s accomplishments related to “public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision/ setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all, and performance within the context of their times.”

Because C-SPAN has repeated this survey numerous times over the years, the presidents’ rankings sometimes shift, which pushed Dwight Eisenhower (#5) into the upper echelons for the first time. This shifting makes me wonder if the more recent presidents, Obama and George W. Bush (#33), will eventually move closer toward the middle of the rankings.

Donald Trump was still in office when The Presidents was published, so he was not considered in the rankings, although there is a chapter at the end which has prominent historians speculating how Trump might fare in future surveys based on the criteria mentioned above. (It doesn’t look good for Trump, and this discussion was pre-pandemic.)

The second track of the book presents a chapter on each president with interesting transcripts from authors discussing their subjects on C-SPAN over the years. The order of the chapters is determined by the presidents’ rankings from Abraham Lincoln (#1) through James Buchanan (#43). These chapters include illuminating anecdotes and interpretations of each president’s life and time in office.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did not meet my expectations neither in formatting nor in content and assessment of political figures. Perhaps it is an impossible task since each president faced very different issues, though there are some issues nearly every president has faced. I would have preferred a format that assessed each presidents strengths, weaknesses, what unique issues there era faced, and any unforeseen consequences of their actions. One example of this might be how President Lincolns decision to use an executive proclamation for ending slavery has left us with a morass of executive orders that change when a president takes and leaves office. As it is, the format of the book made me think of a reality TV show or a popularity contest where people like Washington and Lincoln would be assured, though other presidents worked just as hard to face different sets of issues. I was also disappointed that this book didn’t really highlight the contrast between presidents Arthur and Harding when it came to the issues of corruption and allowing his cronies undue influence or favors. President Arthur worked to rise above it to a degree while Harding seemed to do a the more the merrier approach.

[Tracy Hackney · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some aspects of this book I enjoyed very much. Since it covered every American President there was a lot of new information to learn, particularly on the less well known Presidents. Some of the historians made a good case for why certain Presidents may have been underestimated in their importance due to fickle public opinion or circumstances beyond their control due to the effects of past administrations or events that came about during their own administration. However, some of the historians seemed biased in their retelling of historical events and seemed to want to view everything through 21st century lenses or their own particular political party’s lenses. After reading this book, there are certainly some of the Presidents I would like to study in more detail.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, five stars, for a history book that is basically a list. This is a personal choice - I love a list, and the fact that the essays from historians about each president - sometimes excerpts or interviews from previous times - were wonderfully curated was excellent, but the historians also highlight sometimes little known episodes in each President's life, and by reading of the entire list, you get to know which presidents you want to read more about and also which historian has a writing style you might enjoy reading more of. If you want to dabble more in American history, this is a perfect book to try.

[Jay Clement · Rating 4 out of 5]

86-2019. This was a snappy tour through the 44 ex-presidents. I learned a good deal about them that I’m embarrassed I did not already know. The ratings were interesting, and now I think I have a better idea about why some are exalted and some besmirched.

[William Bahr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This what the reader learns as he opens this very interesting book:

"C-SPAN is directing any royalties from the sale of this book to the nonprofit C-SPAN Education Foundation, which supports the creation of history and civics teaching materials for middle and high school teachers and their students."

Style: The chapters are each based on a single transcribed C-SPAN interview with a nationally recognized presidential historian or biographer. To achieve readability, questions and unimportant portions were removed from the transcript, and sequence of comments were reordered.

Presidential rankings: These were based upon C-SPAN’s 2017 survey of 91 presidential historians and professional observers, who rated our leaders on ten equally-weighted leadership qualities: Public persuasion, Crisis leadership, Economic management, Moral authority, International relations, Administrative skills, Relations with Congress, Vision/setting an agenda, Pursued equal justice for all, Performance within the context of the times. (Wikipedia comment about C-SPAN’s surveys: 3-4 presidents’ ratings are bound to be low because of relatively short tenures; Nixon’s is complicated: brilliant on some aspects, amoral on others; recent-effect on many, pushing some up, others down).

Information is then provided in the form of an introduction, comments about special contributors (who provided comments on Trump and either an essay or one of the chapters — The Top Ten; The Men in the Middle (23), the first of whom is Woodrow Wilson, whose next rating is likely sure to suffer due to recently increased awareness of his racism; and All the Rest (10, not including Trump). For those confused as to why there are only 44 mentioned, it’s because Grover Cleveland served twice, once as the 22 and then 24th president. The essay by special contributor Douglas Brinkley provides a brief history of presidential rankings. Personal note here: as a former marketer familiar with questionnaires, the book doesn’t make clear how the C-SPAN questionnaire was administered. Yes, there’s equal weight given on each leadership characteristic. However, is each historian prevented from going back and changing their individual characteristic scores to promote/demote certain presidents higher or lower with a revised total score? Perhaps only The Shadow and his Clairol hairdresser know for sure!

The chapters then begin with one on Lincoln. As other reviewers have commented, these chapters do not necessarily give clear rationale for why each president holds his ranking in the book. The chapters, in many ways, are observations taken from the research these contributors have done which is included in their cited books. So, I was quite intrigued by the unusual commentary on Lincoln, which focused on his time as president-elect. I’ll take the liberty of citing one interesting paragraph in particular:

“Washington legend is that this [Willard Hotel in DC] was the very hotel lobby where the term ‘Lobbyist’ was born, and maybe it happened on the night of February 23 [1861]. Lincoln got here early in the morning. He went right out with William Seward to visit President James Buchanan down the way at the White House, to pay an unexpected call on the president. He made a couple of other stops, and when he got home at night, the hotel was filled with cigar-smoking, gin-and bourbon-drinking people who had things on their mind and things to expect. They wanted jobs. They had things on their mind and things to expect. They wanted jobs. They wanted favors. They wanted diplomatic positions. They wanted postmasterships. Lincoln was told that the crowd was so thick and so angry and so demanding that one aspirant for a job had threatened to challenge another aspirant for the same job to a duel. Lincoln said, ‘That’s probably not a bad idea – we would lubricate ht process a little bit.’ He was eager for the aspirants to winnow down.”

Given that I’ve written one and writing more books about George Washington, I was especially interested in the second chapter, Ron Chernow’s on Washington, which was excellent. One small point, however, needs to be made about a common spurious quote on page 40: “Benjamin West, a portrait artist, told King George III that General Washington was planning on resigning his commission and going back to Mount Vernon. And George III says, 'If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.'” Actually, as reported by Rufus King in 1797 about what George III allegedly told Benjamin West: "that act closing and finishing what had gone before and viewed in connection with it, placed him in a light the most distinguished of any man living, and that he thought him the greatest character [emphasis, character] of the age.”

Again, royalties from the book are going to C-SPAN, an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States federal government, as well as other public affairs programming. If you’d like to support C-SPAN while enjoying a great read, as a fellow author, I’d highly recommend this book!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Left me with more questions than answers.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting snapshots of each president of the U.S. in the order of Best rated to lowest (Trump was in office when the book was published so he is an after thought at the end of the book. Each chapter is drawn from an author who wrote a book about that president and was then interviewed on a C-span show about that book.
Makes me want to pick up some of the books to learn more.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Short, interesting discussions of each president, arranged from best to worst as they were ranked by historians. Each presidential section is culled from a discussion with a historian or biographer, so it’s not so much a linear argument why Abraham Lincoln is first or why Franklin beat out Teddy. Instead, you get interesting insights into aspects of every president’s life or administration. And it was a great read throughout. I thought at first maybe I would read the first dozen or so and then skip around and skim the rest, figuring I didn’t need to read a whole section on Milliard Fillmore. But I actually found that some of the most interesting sections were on many of the middle and lower ranked presidents. Really, how much more can be said about Lincoln or Washington, but you have biographers writing on these other presidents, spending so much time and effort studying and writing about their subject, that you get unique insights and quite a bit ofempathy for presidents that people don’t know quite as much about. This book should be required reading for all Americans. You walk away with a better understanding of all the individuals who have resided in the White House. You also get a glimpse of why some succeeded and are remembered as great, and why others failed and got largely forgotten.

[Thomas Mackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of brief presidential biographies organized by their ratings. Collected by CSpan, this is a respectable collection but very “diverse” in quality. Writers have been listed as historians and journalists with the exception of a few professors of history, very few. Because, the biographies were all written by different journalists the quality differs. Surprising a number were quit awful. Choppy, bland narratives that resembled a social studies reader for 5 grade. Many tried way too hard to make their President relevant to modern readers. The Coolidge biography was particularly choppy and overtly partisan with noticeable lack of historical thinking. I might be a bit harsh but I expected better writing even if the biographical and historical details were weak.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not much there as you would expect

I read a lot of biographies of presidents. This book purports to be a systematic ranking of all the presidents (except for the current one) by historians. It’s from C-SPAN and it’s extremely uninteresting.

My problems with it:
Finding out the names of the rankers.
Getting detailed breakdowns on the rankings for each criterion.
Very spotty descriptions of each president, all of which are transcriptions of CSPAN interviews. Doesn’t a 1995 interview with David Maraniss about Bill Clinton leave out large portions of that presidency.

Please skip this.

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good, but two things lowered my rating from where it might otherwise have been. Of the few (maybe only two?) women historians, the biography of one included a mention of her historian husband. None of the male historian bios included their wives. Also, a few of the president sections really didn’t delve into the actual president much. The John Adams part talked more about his feuding with Jefferson than actually about Adams. Similar issues in a few others too.

[Alan Robisch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would liked a book like this but the text describing each president gives you no indication of why each president were listed in the order that they were. The text was only excerpts from books by the biographer. It would have been much more interesting if the pros and cons of each individual's presidency were given. A chart gives reasons for the rating in numbers but not the reason for that number

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A shame that I can only give five stars. I would give more if I could! Probably the best I've ever read summarizing the executive branch of our government. Does not read as dry history. Up close studies and analysis of the various presidents and how they compare. Well worth the time to anyone who wants to know more about our country.

[Keith LaFountaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Some may find this book misleading, as it doesn't really explore the presidential rankings beyond surface-level explanations as to why Lincoln is the best and Buchanan is the worst. Even still, this works as a bite-sized look at every US president, their major accomplishments, their biggest faults, and their overall legacy.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

A great read for the history/president buff that wants to dig even deeper than the C SPAN presidential rankings. There is great insight into the presidency of each man that has completed their time in office.

[Barbara Lovejoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw an interview about this book on TV that whetted my appetite to read it. It was even better than I had expected I learned so much about each president. I highly recommend this book.

[Mark Wenz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book yet have several criticisms of it. Let me begin with the positives.

For the curious and mostly uninformed reader, this was an edifying and interesting look at all of the presidents. Each writer looked at not only the political strengths and shortcomings of each man but also gave us a glimpse into their personalities and personal lives. I didn't know much about half of these men, and reading this book gave me a greater understanding.

However, I have several criticisms. First, each "chapter" begins with an explanation of why this president was ranked 4th or 14th or 24th or 34th or 44th. However, these explanations don't tell us much. Rather than explaining why someone was ranked 33rd in "Relations with Congress," it simply listed the ranking. Why the man received that ranking may be better explained in the next 6-12 pages (the range in length that each writer was allotted), but, then again, it might not.

Second, I felt too much was devoted to each man's personal life and not enough to his presidential accomplishments or lack thereof. Although their personal lives may have been interesting, I would guess that most readers wanted to know more about their places in the shaping of American history.

Lastly, and the most glaring weakness of them all, was that the text on each president was often transcribed from a spoken interview; as a result, sometimes the syntax, semantics, organization, or grammar is glaringly shoddy. Allow me to provide some evidence for my criticism. As a former English teacher, I used to tell my student writers to use adverbs sparingly because often they added little or no meaning to a sentence; yet I noticed, while reading this book, that adverbs were frequently overused and that the most common modifier at fault was "very," a word that often does little but clutter a writer's sentences. After a while the use of some overused adverbs (for example: "somewhat," "exceedingly," or, God forbid "pretty"--as an adverb, not as an adjective) became annoying. Let me cite just one of the authors, David O. Stewart (who's not alone, believe me) who overuses adverbs and writes unclear and awkward sentences in his analysis of Andrew Johnson:

1. "... the minority member of the committee made a very powerful argument ...." (Doesn't "powerful" suffice without a qualifier?) [p. 471]
2. "... that effort failed by a pretty wide margin ..." (What does "pretty wide" mean? Why not specify the exact margin?) [p. 471]
3. "The House proceedings lasted no more than four days. It was very fast." ("It" has no antecedent. If "proceedings" was the antecedent, the correct pronoun would be "they.") [p. 471]
4. "... he [Thaddeus Stevens] really couldn't perform in the courtroom." (What good does the word "really" do here? He either could or could not perform effectively. Be precise!) [p. 471]

All of these writing gaffes appear on just one page, and there were just as many unfortunate usages on several pages throughout the book. In addition, the organization of some of the analyses was random. Someone should have been tasked with editing the interviews into concise and articulate presentations.

Taking both the positives and the negatives into consideration, I am giving this book a three-star rating: worth reading if you can get past the writing blunders that permeate the book.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an interesting, albeit surface-level, review of each of America's presidents and their comparative legacies. I was initially interested in reading this compilation because while I knew a lot about 10-15 presidents, I knew almost nothing at all about many others. As a student of history, I wanted to have a basic understanding of every president, and I think this book did a great job in accomplishing that. After reading it, I was able to name every president in order (a skill I've wanted for a long time) and give a basic assessment of each one, from obscure executives like Benjamin Harrison to infamous leaders such as James Buchanan.

The book's ranking of presidents is according to C-Span's regular survey on the subject, in which a couple hundred historians rank each leader along several indices: economic management, crisis management, relations with Congress, pursued equal justice for all, etc. It is fascinating to see how this stacks up into composite rankings, and the final order is generally decent, although it makes a few glaring mistakes in my opinion (e.g. ranking Wilson so highly or H.W. Bush as decidedly average). I do wish the full category rankings were published with the book instead of just the composite rankings, but each entry catalogues the president's more notable placements.

Each president's entry includes a short excerpt from a book or interview with a historian who specializes in that individual. Because these are drawn from so many different sources, there's great contrast depending on the president. For example, entries for the super famous presidents and many of the more recent ones were insightful, fascinating summaries of their presidencies. Meanwhile, for presidents such as James Garfield or Warren Harding who aren't researched often, I felt that the excerpts almost completely failed to discuss the president's policies and legacy at all -- Garfield's excerpt basically exclusively dealt with his assassin and not with the man. While it would be difficult, I do think that a single team of authors writing on each president would provide more consistently relevant information throughout the book.

With that said, this book isn't trying to be a single narrative placing all the presidents into context; that would be beyond the scope of most nonfiction. The book seeks to be a basic introduction and comparative discussion of the presidents, and in that manner, it succeeds admirably. For anyone who's interested in learning about an individual chief executive, an era, or the presidency as a whole, I would recommend at least reading parts of this book, if not the whole thing.

[Martin Denton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book, a compendium of essays about all of the U.S. Presidents from Washington to Obama, based on interviews with biographers of each that originally appeared on C-SPAN.

There are two reasons why I found "The Presidents" to be worthwhile. First, each of the 43 authors is given his/her own take on how to approach their subject: some, like Ron Chernow on George Washington, cover broad biographical ground, while others, like David O. Stewart on Andrew Johnson, focus on just one aspect of a president's life/career (in this case, Johnson's impeachment). This makes for some very engaging and original discourse; I learned a lot of new information about many of our chief executives, and I was exposed to perspectives and points of view that added much to my understanding of their lives and tenures. (In short: I liked this book a lot.)

The second distinguishing factor is what might be termed the book's gimmick: the order of the essays is based on the presidents' rankings in a recent (2017) survey of historians. (Since you can find the rankings easily enough by viewing the book on Amazon, it's no spoiler to tell you that Lincoln comes in first and Buchanan comes in last.)

Reading the bios of presidents in this order, rather than the more traditional chronological approach, means that (a) in general, the better known and objectively more interesting presidents come first in the book; and (b) patterns of performance and character, in terms of what constitutes a successful vs. unsuccessful president, do emerge with some clarity.

I came away with three main conclusions:

(1) Historians seem to value decisiveness and decision-making as among the most important traits of a president.

(2) Presidential action or inaction was almost always rooted in an understanding of the Constitutional limits on the office: Many presidents, from Van Buren to Hoover, relied on the Constitution as they understood it to justify why they didn't offer relief to suffering Americans; others, like Jefferson and both Roosevelts, expanded the office with clear consciousness of the precedents they might be setting.

(3) The only President in the book who seems to actually have committed actual crimes while in office was Richard Nixon (who was perhaps rated too highly at #28).

Ranking these 43 chief executives with precision seems like a very difficult and possibly even unnecessary task: I suspect that categorizing them with letter grades or something similar might feel clearer and less nit-picky. But nevertheless, "The Presidents" is a valuable work, offering much insight into an indisputably important area of American history and culture.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2017 C-SPAN sponsored a presidential historian's survey wherein 91 historians and "professional observers of the presidency" rated the nation's leaders in 10 categories considered essential to leadership: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursuit of equal justice for all, and performance within context of their times. Overall scores were then compiled to create a list from best to worst for the 43 presidents who had completed their tenure as of 2017.

This book presents the presidents in ranked order, and for each president there is about 10 pages of analysis, drawn from C-SPAN interviews with a variety of authorities. I did not read each of these essays, but skipped around and perused what interested me most. I read enough to find that, having come from spoken interviews, the "essays" are colloquial rather than academic, and flit about from topic to topic in a somewhat chronological manner.

My favorite parts of the book were the introduction and epilogue. where the compilers gave overall thoughts on the presidency, and what makes a good president. Clearly rankings are influenced by the times and events each president faced (for example, Lincoln's ability to hold the nation together during the crucible of the Civil War has a lot to do with his high ranking; while Herbert Hoover's disastrous management of the 1929 stock market crash influenced his low rank). It's also clear that the passage of time is necessary to gain perspective on the legacy of each leader.

I was interested to see that some presidents score consistently high or low in every category (i.e. George Washington and James Buchanan), while others are a mixed bag. For instance, Bill Clinton (15th overall) comes out 3rd in economic management and 38th in moral authority, while Barack Obama (12th overall) is 3rd in equal justice for all, 24th in international relations and 39th in relations with congress.

Overall I found this book quite fascinating. For those who are as interested in the rankings as I am, but don't want to take the time to read any of the book, the survey results are all broken down at https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurve....

[Rich Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book specifically because it was brought up in an interview I had a couple weeks ago for a new teaching position. I wanted to see how “my” go-to presidents stood up, so I gave it a shot. I enjoyed many of the not often talked about stories about each of the “main” presidents and learning about others from the 1800s who I only know because of lists and events during their presidency but not them as people.

More than that though, I became really interested in the methodology that they’re using. Specifically, they identified different criteria and are using it to measure presidents and then come up with a composite score. I appreciate this because it made me think back on a couple of freshmen civics classes I observed last year. In them, students were debating the merits of Lincoln. They were given texts to read and did some limited research in groups. It was high on Bloom’s. I was puzzled, however, when so many students decided that Lincoln was a bad president. (This was almost unanimous.) We’re in the Land of Lincoln, afterall. I also understand Lincoln wasn’t a saint. He was not quick to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, nor did he make all of the right moves toward ending the war quickly. There was animosity in the nation. It’s not a time I would’ve wanted to live through. Still, this book places him number 1, and I kind of have to agree. The good he did outweighed the bad. The office of the presidency only has so much power. I don’t blame the students though. They made sound arguments based on the information they had and their admirable optimism. I know I have more than a dose of it as an adult and had too much of it in my youth. What they were lacking was a set of objective criteria with which to measure Lincoln’s presidency and context that helps put his presidency in perspective. I’m starting to increasingly appreciate the need for methods in writing and am interested in reading more texts that have clearly stated and original methods with which to use as models in my own classrooms in the future, and this book is a good model for that.

[Len Knighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second C-Span book I have read; Abraham Lincoln was the first. Both books were written from the transcripts of interviews from C-Span programs such as Q&A. It did not work well with LINCOLN; the book had one primary subject and perhaps too many cooks that spoiled the broth. There was a great deal of redundancy in LINCOLN.
The formula for creating ABRAHAM LINCOLN worked better in THE PRESIDENTS but it is not without flaws. The most obvious is that people generally do not write as they speak, although some do with horrific results. If the authors interviewed had been allowed to edit their words on the page, we would have a more polished and readable product. Susan Swain edited the interviews, remaining faithful to the author’s spoken words. Let the reader beware.
One of the positives of this format is that the reader can, in a sense, feel like he/she is having a conversation with the author. I felt more inspired to comment on the text, especially as I was reading from Kindle.
Many of the interviews from which this book is written were first broadcast on C-Span in 2017-18, the first half of Donald Trump’s first term. What we learn from that perspective is that there is nothing new under the sun. The political climate in years past may resemble the conditions of today but I would suggest that it was not as severe or threatening as it is today.
I am disappointed that the book does not include an interview with David McCullough, who wrote outstanding biographies of Presidents John Adams and Harry Truman. I believe he discussed at least one of them with Brian Lamb on Q&A.

To attempt to cover an entire Presidency in a one hour interview is next to impossible so, in the majority of the chapters, the focus is on one event or issue in that term. For example…
The chapter on James Garfield focuses on his assassination by Charles Guiteau, which is covered in detail in DARK HORSE by Kenneth Ackerman. There is almost nothing about Garfield’s six months in office.
The final segment, written by Edna Greene Medford, puts the Presidency into historical context. This includes the first year of the first Trump term.

Four stars waning

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are several rankings of U.S. presidents, and C-SPAN has conducted three studies over the last 20 years using historians to rate leaders on 10 qualities using a one (“not effective”) to ten (“very effective”) scale. These variables include public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all and performance within the context of his times.

In small part, this book is about the history of rankings and how it’s both an arbitrary parlor game and an attempt to recognize exceptional leadership. To that extent, there are few surprises in the rankings: Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan are in the top 10; contemporary presidents and lesser-known but effective men are in the middle, and acknowledged failures Andrew Johnson and Buchanan are among the bottom. Rather than read this in the order of the rankings, I approached it chronologically to give myself some level of continuity over gaps of time I don’t know well — and really, the order doesn’t matter in how you read it: I guarantee you’ll learn something you didn’t know before.

This is an incredibly informative and nuanced book, with each president covered by a different historian or biographer. Culled from television interviews with these authors, the book is conversational and compulsively readable. But, as not all presidents are the same, not all chapters are the same: Some authors cover specific moments in time, others take on a macro look of an entire lifetime. Either way, these portraits reveal a great deal about the person discussed — and provide informed suggestions as to why they excelled at some things and failed at others. This is a wildly interesting read for both history nerds and those looking for an entry point on U.S. leadership.

[Doris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book aloud with my husband, covering a few chapters every once in a while over several months. We had not read much presidential history or biography previously, so we looked to this book to give us an overview of presidents over the course of our nation's life, without delving deeply into any particular one.
Each presidential chapter is based on a C-SPAN interview with a different historian who has either written a biography of the president in question, or is in some other way an expert on that president. The chapters are ordered by C-SPAN panel ranking, best to worst. They don't follow any prescribed outline, and sometimes concentrate on only a specific aspect of a given president's times or governance.
One thing that surprised me, as we got to the end of the book and were reading chapters about presidents who were ranked at the very bottom of the heap, was that the historians of the bottom-ranked presidents didn't dwell on the negative aspects of their subject. They were more likely to mention positive contributions or reasons why it was someone or something other than the president who deserved blame for the low ranking.
There is a chapter at the end of the book in which three historians discuss the presidency of Donald J. Trump, who was still serving his first term when the book was published, and so was not ranked. It surprised me that they spent a good bit of the discussion making comparisons to other presidencies and other times in history, and less of the discussion was about the actual events of the Trump presidency.
After finishing the book, my husband and I agreed that it might be worthwhile to re-read the book, but read the chapters in chronological order of the presidencies in order to get a more linear view of the administrations and the times in which they served.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stars) It is one of the more common, but least important, aspects of presidential history…the ranking of US Presidents over history. We’ve now hit 47, with 45 men serving in that office. When the book was published, Biden’s presidency was not accounted for, nor the second season of Trump: The Presidency. Thus, the work go through the game of ranking presidents. Like any rankings, there will be debates and arguments. Same with sports team’s power rankings. Fun for reading/debate, but having no real bearing on the study of the office. The work starts in order of 1st to worst (Lincoln leads off, with Buchanan bringing up the rear). Trump is not rated, but the last chapter is spent trying to assess where he would stand. Imagine what the follow-up will be after this Trump term.

I won’t get into quibbles with where presidents are ranked. For what it is worth, I am not sure you can really rank a president until they have been out of office for at least 10-15 years, so rankings of Obama are probably a bit premature. Also, how can you really rank Garfield and William Henry Harrison, as they barely served for 6 months and 1 month, respectively. Although, the account of Garfield spends as much time on his assassin as it did on the man. The accounts by the various writers are solid and can offer some good insight, but even then, there is not a lot of consistency in the writing, so that is a drawback.

Worth a read and if it get people talking about Presidential rankings, it will do its job. However, it is one that could have been pulled off a bit better, or at least, could have been more talking about the men in office vs. what some of the accounts provided.