Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty

by Ivan Eland

Evaluating presidents on the merits of whether their policies promoted peace, prosperity, and liberty, this ranking system takes a distinctly new approach. Historians and scholars have long tended to give higher rankings to presidents who served during wartime, were well spoken, or exceeded in expanding the power of the executive office. However, this new examination cuts through these longstanding biases and political rhetoric to offer a new nonpartisan system of ranking that is based purely on how well each president’s policies adhered with the founders’ original intention of limiting federal power in all its aspects. As a result, the book provides an alternative history of the United States as seen through the founders’ likely vision of subsequent presidential actions. These presidential rankings will surprise most and enlighten even acknowledged experts on the presidency.

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

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Scarlett Sims · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard about this book because it was referenced in Ron Paul's The Revolution: A Manifesto.

What this book does is rank the presidents on, as the title would indicate, peace, prosperity, and liberty. The introduction describes exactly what criteria go into these rankings and also how they differ from the criteria used by other analysts' rankings.

This book isn't really partisan--if anything it's Libertarian but not even that. It simply takes a different look at the actions of presidents with some (possibly) surprising results. Many of the most revered presidents took actions that, in Eland's opinion, hurt America and some of the unsung, forgotten/obscure presidents were better. Reading the book cover-to-cover, as I did, is like mini US History lesson because there are descriptions of the causes and effects of many important historical events.

One extremely important thing this book does that I have never seen a history book do (granted every history book I've read previously has been for school) is it takes into account the presidents' relations with and policies regarding Native Americans. Eland stated that several early presidents would have received higher rankings if their policies toward Indians had not been so brutal. I loved that he actually considered that.

There is also an extensive list of sources in the back, divided by chapter--great for further reading.

I'd recommend this book to people who want a non-mainstream interpretation of history. People who don't trust the government and who are interested in seeing the ways in which the Constitution has been abused since the country was founded. I would encourage people not to dismiss the book immediately because you think it doesn't align with your views--unless you think George W. Bush is awesome there will probably be something in here you agree with or can learn from.

[John Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ivan Eland makes an excellent case that the presidents who were carved into Mount Rushmore by Gutzon and Lincoln Borglum are vastly overrated. Additionally he argues that most other presidents who are highly regarded because they served during wars or otherwise increased the scope of presidential power are also not deserving of their reputations. Most readers will be surprised by Dr. Eland’s ranking of John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren and Rutherford B. Hayes as the four best presidents and the most deserving of Rushmore status, but he makes his criteria clear and makes good arguments to support his ranking system. His criteria are peace, prosperity and liberty, and he awards his highest rankings to those presidents who do the most to protect those goals.

One takeaway is that ranking presidents is not easy. They all have some negatives and most of them have some positives and it can be difficult to assign the proper weight to each presidential act – or refusal to act. It can also be difficult to determine how much credit or blame belongs to the presidents and how much to others, such as their cabinets, Congress or the Chairs of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Another takeaway is that Dr. Eland’s rankings make sense – a lot more than more publicized rankings, but I do quarrel with some of his conclusions. First, I dispute his criticism of income tax cuts primarily because he does not distinguish between tax rate cuts and tax revenue cuts. All or almost all the income tax cuts that he criticizes were rate cuts that resulted in tax revenue increases. For example, tax rates were slashed dramatically during by Harding and Coolidge in the 1920s, dropping from over 70 percent to less than 25 percent, resulting in an increase of more than 61% in revenues from $719 million in 1921 to $1,164 million in 1928. Most of the benefit from the income tax reductions went to the middle class and the poor. The share of the tax burden borne by the rich (those making $50,000 and up in those days) climbed from 44.2% in 1921 to 78.4% in 1928. Similar results accompanied the tax cuts implemented by Presidents Kennedy and Reagan.

Although Mr. Eland correctly criticizes the unconstitutional war-financing activities carried on during the Reagan administration, there were some economic benefits to Reagan’s tax RATE reductions that Mr. Eland does not seem to appreciate. I would rank President Reagan higher than #35. I would also give Reagan more credit for controlling spending while working with a reluctant Congress. During his presidency, discretionary domestic spending, which had increased by 2% per year during Carter's administration, decreased by 1.3% per year (per Cato and Reason)!

It is surprising to see Jimmy Carter at #8 and Bill Clinton at #11. These rankings seem to be much higher than appropriate. One reason is that Mr. Eland completely ignores the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which Jimmy Carter signed in 1977. The CRA assumed that racist lenders denied mortgages to credit-worthy would-be borrowers, particularly minority applicants and forced bank regulators to criticize banks whose loan portfolios did not include loans to marginal borrowers. Then in 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules even more by rewriting the CRA, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods and contributed significantly to the 2008 recession.

Also, some of Clinton’s successes were attributable to the Republican Congress that he worked with for the last 6 years of his presidency. Clinton talked about welfare reform when he was first elected, but it was not accomplished until 1996 with a bill passed by the Republican House and Senate. Clinton’s economic record was also fortified by the same Republican House and Senate preventing him from implementing Hillarycare and inserting more government regulation into the health care system.

In the chapters on the presidents from Carter through Obama, the author attributes much credit and some blame to FRB chairmen Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke for their roles in setting monetary policy. But, in the chapters on Harding and Coolidge, he gives these presidents all the blame for the subsequent issues that resulted from the growth in the money supply. He doesn’t even mention the FRB Chairmen at the time (primarily Daniel Crissinger, 1923-1927).

Since this is such an excellent book with a unique potential to correct some popular misconceptions, it is distressing to find some editing errors. One example is the statement on page 153 that “in 1889, Congress officially opened Indian Territory to white settlement, and Hayes went along with their action.” The term of Rutherford B. Hayes ended in 1881. On March 2, 1889 (just before the end of Grover Cleveland's first term), Congress did pass an amendment to the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, which provided for the creation of homestead settlements in the unassigned lands, to be known as Oklahoma Territory.

Another example is his claim on page 339 that “Ford used the veto more than any other president, for a record sixty-six times in eighteen months.” This assertion is contradicted by multiple internet sources indicating that Grover Cleveland used the veto 584 times, 6.1 per month, and FDR used the veto 635 times, 4.3 per month. So Gerald Ford, with 3.7 vetoes per month, neither used the veto more frequently nor more in total than any other president.

The book was originally published in 2009 and an this is a review of the updated edition, which was published in 2014 and includes Barack Obama. There are some statements that were correct in the 2009 edition that should have been, but were not, revised in the updated version. One example is the claim that Richard Nixon was “the last liberal president.” Mr. Eland points out that Nixon embraced and implemented many liberal policies, so he might have been more liberal than Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, but probably not more so than Obama, whose liberal resumé includes the Affordable Care Act, Stimulus and the Auto Bailout.

Although I like Mr. Eland’s four nominees (Tyler, Cleveland, Van Buren and Hayes) for Rushmore status, I would like to add Coolidge as a fifth nominee. Coolidge deserves more credit than Mr. Eland gives him for the impact that his tax RATE cuts had on all Americans and for cutting spending and the national debt. Also, he did not have the baggage that the top four had (Tyler – expanding executive privilege and increasing tariffs, Van Buren and Hayes- mistreating Native Americans, Cleveland – not vetoing unconstitutional income tax legislation and creating two new cabinet departments, among other negatives). On the other hand, I might criticize Coolidge for one act that Mr. Eland does not mention – he’s the president who approved the spending for the Mount Rushmore sculptures!

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presidential rankings tend to favor those who were most active, reigning during a crisis or creating expansive new programs that alter the nation’s fortunes. What of the peaceful administrators, however, those men who fulfilled their oaths expertly and restrained themselves from intervening unnecessarily in the lives of the people, or in the affairs of other countries? Recarving Rushmore ranks the presidents based on their performance in peace, prosperity, and liberty, and the results challenge conventional judgments and topple legends. Here the forgotten men of presidential history are honored, and the mighty, humbled..

Eland’s standards view the accomplishments of most presidents as liabilities. Intervention in foreign affairs, for instance, not only costs American lives and destroys the nation’s resources, but typically leads to further interventions as the area is destabilized at greater risk to now-present American forces. To add insult to injury, the wars often profit an elite who lobbied for intervention in the first place. Collusion between the government and economic powers drives, in part, Eland’s continual disapproval of any meddling in the economy, whether it come in the form of denaturing the currency with silver, forcing wage and price controls, or offering subsidies. The economic downturns of the 19th century, when no attempt was made by the government to ‘correct’ them, always proved shorter and less intense than the depressions of the 20th century. Eeland sharply condemns not only abuses of power – forced Indian migrations, civil liberties violations, uses of the military in a civilian context – but failures to protect and fulfill the rights of minorities, chiefly blacks. Eland's perspective is consistently libertarian, but errs on the side of federalism in regards to the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement, viewing secession as suspect and offering rare praise to Johnson for his support of civil rights. The author thus avoids the distracting public-relations pitfall of state's rights.

Eland’s measure favors the unknown and scrutinizes the well-publicized, as expected. There are surprises to be found here, however, as he maintains that some presidents are overrated even by conventional standards. Teddy Roosevelt may have had a reputation as a jingoistic trust-buster, but the real work of beginning American Empire was inaugurated by his predecessor, William McKinley. Given the classically liberal stance, one might expect FDR and his New Deal to be utterly damned. His gentle thirteen-year reign takes fire, but FDR was only building on inroads carved out by predecessors. Hoover had meddled in the economy, and it was Wilson who made the presidency an object of fixation and began turning every home into an outpost of the Civil Service. (Wilson holds the inglorious dead-last rank, for the Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, the Great War, his deliberate segregation of the Armed Forces, his abusive crackdown on those who questioned dissent, and more. Wilson commits practically every presidential sin possible in this book, the exception being that he never broke an Indian treaty.) Other presidents who are not unknown, but regarded poorly, actually perform quite well here: Jimmy Carter is designated the best president of the modern era, for instance, for his almost-consistent avoidance of international entanglement, and his deregulation of some major industries. He was also fiscally conservative in a way not rivaled until another Democrat, Bill Clinton, arrived on the scene. (Bill is, surprisingly, "Average".)

Eland has some curiosities as a writer; he refers to Nixon as the last liberal president, for reasons which are never explained. If we are to take liberal in the classical sense, his wage-and-price controls and gold-standard departure would seem to severe him from any claim to that label, and the welfare/warfare model that marks modern liberals was practiced by virtually every president to follow. He repeats the tired old canard that JFK referred to himself as a jelly donut (as silly a claim as Taft being remembered for getting stuck inside a bath tub), and describes Selma as the most violent town in the South, which is based on nothing but the March 1965 assault (The town had no reputation for racial violence before that, and even the Klan was kept away by the city fathers.) On the whole, however, the facts presented are consistent with conventional histories; only the author's judgement differs.

These marks aside, Recarving Rushmore is a most fascinating book, one that turns appraisals of the executives on their head. Even if one disagrees with Eland’s standards for measurement, if nothing else they. This is a text that evaluates its subjects not based on their ability to seduce a crowd, charm the cameras, or ‘inspire’, but on their performance as public administrators. Did they keep the fiscal house in order, ensure the peace and stability that lead to prosperity, and safeguard the rights of the people? If so, they are the model of a Constitutional president, one who allows the American people to be the primary actors in their own lives, the creators of their own destiny -- not simply the tools to be used in some great vision.

[Kat M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great American history book. Each president chapter could be read in isolation, or you can read it front-to-back like I did. The author reiterates - without boring you or wasting words - what the significance of presidential policies were when they carry through multiple administrations. There are many events in American history that will either be new to you or have you thinking more deeply about them. If every American read this book, we would have a better-informed populace with a healthy dose of skepticism about the POTUS (as an institution, as well as the individuals).

The final ranking is somewhat surprising at tines, but the author makes a very good case for each president's pros and (mostly) cons. My biggest criticism is the subjective labels of the scale. By my reading, no president has been "good" let alone "excellent". When working with such a serious curve, more honest labels would be "above average" or "not awful". Those are pretty terrible labels, I admit, so this is a rather dolly criticism. I do notice, however, that the author opted to use "average" and not "fair" - perhaps because the presidents in the average category tended to have many policies that were altogether unfair towards entire swaths of the population.

[Sophia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author was too ambitious in writing this book. A proper attempt at any form of objectivity in ranking individuals needs to stem from discussion by a group of diverse people, not just one man who's only claim to objectivitity is a lack of political identification with the two main parties discussed.
In the end his biases show, and a naïve but intelligent reader would have a hard time developing reasonable judgements of their own on past presidents.

That being said, it is always good to read others' opinions, especially when not in line with your own.

In my opinion, the most valuable contributions of this book are:
1. An overview of all the presidents in one go. I have not had much occation to study american history, and this was a very helpful first step. The stupid practice of learning the list of presidents' names by heart is trying to prove an understanding of their work that can be found in this book instead. I think a more simplified version of this book, maybe without the ranking aspect, would be a good substitution to name learning.
2. Encouraging judging leaders not just by what they do, but what they avoided doing. This is easier said then done, like proving a negative, but as presidents, there are a few measurable aspects such as decisions to NOT interfere in conflicts, or not follow the same but harmful policies adopted in the past. I very much appreciated in this book reading about how many bad things were actually avoided in the midst of bad things chosen.
3. A valiant attempt to remove charisma and personality from the equation. I know from personal experience that it is easily a critical factor when judging another person, but at the scale of decision making that US presidents engage in, it only has a minor role in public relations and a bit of international diplomacy. This should still be considered, especially in light of the disaster of the current orange president, but from a more analytical standpoint rather than gut feeling.

The things I find most distasteful about this book arise from this apparent attempt at objectivity in an endeavor that is almost by definition subjective.
1. Inconsistent standards. While the collection of pros and cons is I think fairly thorough, and consist of good points, different presidents get different credit in their rank value for same or similar factors. What for one president is a minor con is for another far more critical in reducing the rank. It's very subtle throughout the book, but there.
2. Claims to consider context, but doesn't really. The author is a staunch proponent of limited government, and while this doesn't reflect a party bias, there is a decrease in ranking over time, which reflects the move away from limited government context and not necessarily the quality of the presidents. This is most aparent in his evaluation of Obama. In the text of his chapter, the author acknowledges the massive mess of a situation he inherited from Bush, but still Obama doesn't get ranked much higher essentially for not having done a better job in pulling the country out of the massive mess. Obama is constantly equated to Bush in the actions he has taken, but from my understanding, this reflects more the political reality.
3. Thinks he could have done better. This is an assumption of mine, because the author judges presidents for not having taken alternative actions. Sometimes these options were historically known and apprent, so I agree with the idea, but sometimes the author comes up with his own solutions. It is not always obvious when it's hindsight that determines the author's judgement of a poor choice or not. This subjective introduction of alternatives is evident with Lincoln, in which the author goes so far as to suggest that instead of engaging in the civil war, Lincoln could have used less money to buy all the slaves from the South. This is an absolutely rediculous proposition, first because the costs of war are not really known before hand, second because by his own words Lincoln was more motivated by unity than freedom, and third, this does not reflect reality. You can't buy slaves like you can buy Alaska. And as a petty point, the author probably would have critisized Lincoln anyway for this massive expenditure.
4. Standards of what a president should do to be good. This would be difficult for anyone, but the author easily jumped into creating a fantasy world in which the constituion is nothing less than perfect and utterly infallible. In this fantasy, government has only a small role on the stage of social order, and what worked in 1776 should work just as well in 2000, barring minor adjustments reflecting social change. While it is right to judge a president on their adherence to the law, this judgement should not be absolute. Just like the author feels that indviduals avoiding the draft should have been pardoned, presidents whose illegal actions proved beneficial and later changed the law for the better should also be "pardoned". This is not a big issue though. What really bothers me is his disgust for all actions aimed at expanding government intervention and social welfare, regardless of their actual benefit. I do not know enough about the situation, but I would think that instead of holding the presidents to some impossible ideal (impossible as in tried and slowly failed with the US system), to instead look to other countries who are doing well and have adopted similar or different policies before saying that such policies are inherently good or bad.

More could be said, but I think those are the main points. Overall, it was an interesting read, and helped me realize that Trump may not actually be the worst president the US has ever had. It has helped me refine my own metric with which to judge a presidency, even if not exactly what the author was going for. I don't think I recommend the book, but I am glad I read it.

later edit: I reduce the rating from 3 to 2 stars after having read an independent book on economics. Clearly, Mr Eland has no understanding of economics, the history of economics, and economic policies. This leads to a frankly useless ranking of presidents in the field of "prosperity"

[Devan Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was a fun analysis of Presidents based on criteria different than what most people use. In most cases, I found myself agreeing with the author, though there were a few I though were ranked too high or too low.

I also wish that he had annotated a bit more. Several times, I wanted to check a reference for something he said, only for there to be no reference. I get that this is a book for mass audiences, but it would have been a helpful touch.

[Shannon Hunsel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the idea of this book, and it does contain some interesting points of view and tidbits. I also really like that the author factored a president's treatment of Native Americans into his ranking, which other ranking schemes seem to ignore.

But onto the stuff I didn't like. In discussing how a president has taken actions to infringe on personal liberties or that will lead to a disruption in peace or prosperity, the author gives his own opinion on what the president should have done, but he frames his own idea in a way as if it is a clear winner. I think everyone does (or at least should) recognize that there is no perfect system and that every choice and action will have some negative consequence, so it made me laugh (and then started getting irritating) when the author, whom I probably align pretty closely with from an ideological perspective, would conclude a section with a statement that essentially said "the president should have done XYZ, and there you go, no Civil War."

I also found the application of the rules for his ranking system a bit confusing for the earlier presidents. I read the Introduction, so I get that he dinged earlier presidents more heavily if they set into motion an expansion of the executive office that didn't yet exist, but it was still a little confusing. Sometimes it seemed like he was criticizing a president for exercising vetoes and usurping the authority of 'the people's' elected body of Congress and then other times it seemed like he was criticizing presidents for not doing something to stop a Congress gone wild. It's a little scattered in the beginning chapters.

Overall, though, I did find this book fairly interesting even though I disagreed with quite a few of his conclusions. I might keep it around to read as a preface before reading any books focused on a particular president just to help balance the narrative. I did really dig one of the final paragraphs in the Conclusion:
Most of the "excellent" presidents are remembered as bland men with rather gray personalities, but they largely respected the Constitution's intention of limiting government and restraining executive power, especially in regard to making war. They realized that America is great not because of its government's activism at home and abroad, but because of the hard work and great ideas of private American citizens living in freedom... Boring can be beautiful

[Mark Tereshenkov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not an American but I'm interested in the USA history, moreover I'm libertarian so I decided to read this book. Now I recommend it to everyone who wants to learn the history of the United States. Ivan Eland showed that very popular political leaders often don't deserve it, they are often turned out to pursue bad or even disastrous (like Wilson) policy. The author is well-educated, economically literate that helps him to analise actions of all the presidents and find all the consequenses, even those we can notice long after the ending of their term (like the Middle East or Yugoslavian conflict as consequences of Wilson's policy). The book changed my and many other libertarians' views on Jimmy Carter who occured to be underestimated because positive results of his policy are usually considered as Reagan's achievements. The book also proved that great Founding Fathers and political philosophers like Jefferson could be bad presidents. I don't agree with the author on some issues and also think he underrated Bill Clinton, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant and overrated LBJ and Benjamin Harrison but this writing is generally great.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

HA HA HA HA. This book was FUN-nee. I almost wet myself laughing.

Let me see if I got this right..... Mister Libertarian writer from some tax dodge called the Independent Institute says that Jimmy Carter is the 8th best president based on policies that led to peace and prosperity. James Earl Jr. is nudged in there right between a guy named Washington (No. 7) and a guy named Eisenhower (No. 9). I can't stop laughing.

And who makes the bad list? Reagan, FDR, and Lincoln.

I have a bit of a Libertarian in me, but come on. I am kinda thankful that, when it came to the Late Unpleasantness, Abraham Lincoln was, er, an "activist."

WARNING: Read only if you have a sense of humor.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye-opening evaluation of 40 presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush. William Henry Harrison and John Garfield are omitted as their terms were so short. Popular and scholarly opinion of who the best and worst presidents were is turned upside down by the author, who bases his rankings on how well each man upheld the principles of peace, prosperity and liberty. Indeed, Dr. Eland makes an excellent case for 'recarving Rushmore'.

[Trey Sanford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I don't completely agree with the Author's criteria for a great presidency, I think that this book offers an interesting perspective. It is quite a bit editorialized, but each write up-contains interesting and concise facts about American history.

[Noah Kovacs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some thoughts on this volume:
- A fair bias. The author's assessments adopted a bias that felt neither too far left nor too far right. While an advocate of laissez-faire economics, he made several compelling arguments to his philosophy. As a follow up, I think it would be worth reading a similar assessment of these presidents, but from the opposite perspective. But as far as this volume is concerned, I highly appreciated his perspective and learned a lot from it.
- Was historically enriching. The author integrated presidency terms with American and world history well. As an immigrant into the US, I feel I have a much better understanding of this, can now easily identify world/ national events with a corresponding president.
- Highlighted the evolution of the government well. The author did a great job showing the rise of big government, from the unions' conception to modern day. Also, he did a good job in showing the slow-yet-ongoing departure of a Republic (held together by a constitution) to a Democracy (one that exchanges said constitution for the raw influence of a central government).
- Highly subversive. The assessment of Lincoln as a bad president (and rightly so) and the assessments of John Tyler (whom I never even heard of until this volume) was both surprising and informative. Equally as shocking was blatant evils committed by many of these presidents, rivaling pre-modern slaughter. I knew of many of said evils prior to the volume, but not to the extent that this book highlights. Overall, I am sympathetic with those who don't hold much confidence in federal government.

All in all, this book was a good read, and very educational and informative. While I think this is just one piece of an on-going discussion for what it really means to be a good leader/ government/ president, this volume will no doubt be an important works to that end.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty by Ivan Eland is the type of book I want to see. A look at the previous presidents that doesn’t pull punches and actually examines the president not by “what was done” but rather “what could have been done.”

Mr. Eland starts by making some ground breaking statements, claiming that historians judge presidents incorrectly, they tend to focus on activism from presidents and reward wartime presidents, ignoring the fact that many of the “great” presidents only went to war through aggression. He also comments that recency bias is a problem. Meaning the more recent presidents get evaluated unfairly. As a warning, we’ll come back to that last issue in a little bit.

Mr. Eland decided to judge presidents on three factors, focusing more on the constitutional idea of a president than the modern idea. His three factors are “Peace”, “Prosperity” and “Liberty”. On this scale, everything changes.

Rather than reward “warrior presidents”, peace requires presidents to actually work towards peaceful resolutions, rather than get America entangled in wars. He’s willing to give a pass to presidents who inherit and de-escalate a war, however he’s also looking towards what caused a war, or risked a war.

He then looks at the prosperity that presidents create, not only in their term but in the future as well, and this too is an important change. If the economy is bad, he actually looks to the cause, rather than the president who is in charge at the time. This starts to look at who is really affecting the economy, or the acts that cause it, rather than just giving a cyclical bonus to people who were president at the right time.

Finally he takes on “Liberty” and this is the most interesting category in my opinion. Rather than just talk about “what a president should be” he applies the strictest standard to the presidents. How do they uphold the constitution, and while he’s a tough grader, he really examines if presidents do a good job, and by that he means a constitutional job. He looks more to overreaches and changes to the presidential office, than just if the executive branch has too much power while the person is in power, but even so… well to be honest, it seems not many presidents respect the constitution.

So how’s the book? Well… It’s dry, dull and flawed. This is a 450 page book that feels like it’s 2000 pages, it took me almost 2 months to read the whole thing and I tried. It’s not a horible read, but every time I read it, it put me to sleep. That’s not a horrible thing, but it’s not a great sign.

Now I liked the majority of what I read, Mr. Eland does a great job illustrating what presidents have done, and he savages almost all of them appropriately. There’s only about five or six that he even calls great, and thirteen out of the entire 42 (really 40, he skips the two presidents who didn’t last six months).

What’s especially great is Mr. Eland ignores the “untouchable” aspect of the “great” presidents. FDR, Lincoln, and even Washington all get taken to task for their mistakes. He discusses the treatment of slaves/freed slaves and native Americans, without claiming “it’s how it was done at the time.”

He doesn’t negate every president for the fact that slavery was happening, however when a president ignores slavery, or in fact enables it (fugitive slave act anyone?) that’s directly called out. As for the native Americans, quite often he’ll call out when federal troops are used aggressively against them. It’s honestly very illuminating.

In addition he avoids the pitfall of calling wars “necessary” in fact the big three wars, Civil war, World War one and two are considered to be failings in this book for different reasons. Mr. Eland starts from the idea that wars are almost never necessary, and seems to stand by it quite often, showing other ways that agreeable resolutions could happen. And to be honest, he makes a wonderful case for it.

However even though he does a great job, with a majority, of the book and tends to take almost every president to task, I feel like two presidents are problematic. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton as written feel like poor presidents. Not “bad” which George W. Bush, and even Reagan fall into (for good reason) but the chapters on Carter and Clinton are written similar to chapters on the “poor” presidents.

And yet they are ranked average. It feels like Mr. Eland gives both of those presidents a pass, and that brings me to another problem. There’s a rating system for the book, but the summary of each chapter doesn’t really link a rating to the presidents or give a solid explanation of why the presidents are rated the way they were. Quite often the presidents are compared to other presidents near them, but in the case of Carter and Clinton, as well as a few others, a better scoring system or a more indepth view of the scoring is almost required.

If one wants to know the issue with Carter and Clinton, it’s more that they used interventionist tactics quite often and Clinton especially changed a number of major policies that lead to bad outcomes, and yet, similar presidents who did far less, are rated harsher.

Aside from those two presidents the book is pretty complete, and while the rating system is shallow (at least as it’s explained) the book does deliver an interesting a new take on the presidents.

But sadly the book does have that other flaw, of being just dreadfully dull almost all the time. After the first chapter or two, I found most presidents are made me feel like I was slogging through great tomes of information, and while I learned a few things, I think over four hundred pages should have helped me retain more than a few factoids about a few presidents. I have an all new hatred of Woodrow Wilson, and a few new favorite presidents, but overall I doubt I’d be rereading the entire book a second time.

It was a good read, but beware those who start this book, it’s going to take a solid effort to get through this book, and while you might enjoy the stories, it will not be an easy read. And if you love Lincoln, or FDR, beware, you’re going to see an ugly side of your favorites. In fact if you like any president, you’re likely going to see them in a whole new light. However it’s a necessary light, and I’m glad I read it, but dear god, there was so many nights that I fell asleep after reading only ten pages of this book. In fact I’m surprised I didn’t break my kindle dropping it on the floor as I drifted off to sleep almost every night.

[Al Lock · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author claims that he will rate Presidents on a more objective scale then typically used and then proceed to demonstrate that objectivity is not really in consideration here. He excuses one President from being responsible for Congressional acts and vilifies another. He makes claims about the Constitution that are not supported by that document as well as claims about the founder's intent that are not supported by the evidence they left. He seems to be using a single source for many of his profiles (such as Ambrose's Eisenhower) - and he makes multiple factual mistakes. I found this a poorly written, poorly researched and a not very insightful book. The lack of providing sources for the great majority of his claims and the limited depth of the ones that are provided makes this a bit of political rhetoric rather than serious research.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book consists of short histories of each president up to George W Bush. The chapters are really too short and do not contain enough information to come to the conclusions of the author. He also repeats much information from previous to subsequent chapters almost as if he copied and pasted passages.

[Patrick Frise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This history book makes you think about human action. Eland does a remarkable job of analyzing how a President responds to a crisis, but also analyzes if the president caused the crisis. Highly recommend. Especially, read the parts on Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, Harding, FDR, Carter, and Reagan. The way Eland ranks is how historians should.

[Jameslove · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best history book I have read. You will learn a lot about wars and conflicts in the 1800s that you probably never knew about.

[Olaguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very entertaining read that enlightened me on certain presidencies

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. For those scoffers who can't begin to understand how a president like Jimmy Carter got a high rating by Eland, as opposed to say, Ronald Reagan, FDR, Woodrow Wilson,George W., etc., it's important to remember; Eland is not rating presidents like most modern historians have. (major war, most legislation passed, greatest social impact = great president). Instead he is rating them like a Libertarian would. In other words, how well did they do their job as described in the U.S. Constitution? His explanations are detailed and make total sense if one takes the time to understand this point. However, many people won't be able to get past this.

[Bill]

A revisionist list of the past 43 presidents with rankings that change the perspective of what makes a sucessful president. Interesting and full of details told from the idea that radically changing policies, tax codes, and startings wars are not necessisarily "great" things to do. Puts the executive branch in perspective by comparing how much out of bounds the historical favorites stepped. The book celebrates all those "whatshisface" presidents like Cleveland and Tyler.

[Rohit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book is clearly the definitive base to a Libertarian foreign policy. Eland makes a strong case for non-interventionism. While, like most Libertarian raters, he is pretty critical of modern Presidents, unlike others, he accepts the inherent challenges of the Executive office. And I think he understands that building a new Mt. Rushmore would be a horrendous waste of taxpayer money and thus unrealistic. All US history teachers should read this book.

[Clarence Goodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but the author must have been a real buzzkill as a kid.

[Brendan Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good look at the presidents in terms of how they followed the constitution. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a constitutional look at the presidents.