JFK's Last Hundred Days reexamines the last months of the President's life to show a man in the midst of great change, finally on the cusp of making good on his extraordinary promise.

The United States is not a preternaturally inward-looking nation, and isolation is not the natural disposition of Americans. The real question is not whether Americans are prone to isolation or engagement, but how their engagement with the world has evolved, how events have made the United States a superpower, and how these developments have been guided by political leadership. Indeed, the great debates on foreign affairs in American history have...

Explores the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower through the lens of his last three days in office in January 1961, revealing him to be a model of strong yet principled leadership. January 1961: President Eisenhower has three days to secure the nation's future before his young successor, John F. Kennedy, takes power--a final mission by the legendary leader who planned D-Day and guided America through the darkening Cold War. Bret Baier, the Chief Political...

One of the first two volumes in Harper's Eminent Lives series, Korda brings his acclaimed storytelling talents to the life of Ulysses S. Grant – a man who managed to end the Civil War on a note of grace, serve two terms as president, write one of the most successful military memoirs in American literature, and is today remembered as a brilliant general but a failed president. Ulysses S. Grant was the first officer since George Washington to become...

Before he became "the Father of our Country," George Washington was the Father of the American Army. He took an army that had no experience, no tradition, and no training, and fought a protracted war against the best, most disciplined force in the world-the British Army. Deftly handling the political realm, Washington convinced Congress to keep his army supplied-a difficult task when the country was really just a loose confederation of states with...

Fred I. Greenstein is professor of politics emeritus at Princeton University. His books include The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader; How Presidents Test Reality: Decisions on Vietnam, 1954 and 1965; and Presidents and the Dissolution of the Union: Leadership Style from Polk to Lincoln. How the early presidents shaped America's highest office From George Washington's decision to buy time for the new nation by signing the less-than-ideal...