President Franklin Pierce took steps to build new commercial relation­ships abroad, revamp the military, and restructure the federal courts. After an unprecedented landslide in the 1852 presidential election gave him supermajorities in the House and Senate, Pierce seemed poised for a productive presidency.

Millard Fillmore’s journey to the presidency was anything but conventional. Born into poverty in a log cabin in western New York state, he rose from humble beginnings through sheer determination and hard work. He reached all the way to the position of vice president when President Zachary Taylor suddenly perished in office. Fillmore may not have expected his sudden elevation to the presidency, but he rose to the challenge all the same, ready to tackle some of the most pressing matters of state from day one.

Millard Fillmore, who fell into the presidency when Zachary Taylor died unexpectedly, is often regarded as a weak leader and a failed chief executive. Eager to show that he could heal the rift between North and South, Fillmore reversed some of Taylor’s cautious policies. He zealously supported the controversial Compromise of 1850, which some historians believe worsened the sectional divide.

Of the presidents who died of natural causes during their term in office, arguably the most preventable was that of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States. Despite holding the record for the shortest presidential term of merely a month, William Henry Harrison could never be deemed a failure, though he certainly saw his fair share of them.

Worst. President. Ever. flips the great presidential biography on its head, offering an enlightening - and highly entertaining - account of poor James Buchanan's presidency to prove once and for all that, well, few leaders could have done worse. But author Robert Strauss does much more, leading listeners out of Buchanan's terrible term in office to explore with insight and humor his own obsession with presidents, and ultimately the entire notion of ranking our presidents.

President Rutherford B. Hayes, the first Gilded Age president, began his career as an antislavery Union soldier. Yet the Compromise of 1877, which led to his prevailing in the wake of the hotly contested Hayes-Tilden elec­tion, caused Hayes to abandon Reconstruction and turn his attention to economic priorities such as using federal troops to subdue railroad strikes.

Andrew Johnson never expected to be president. But just six weeks after becoming Abraham Lincoln's vice president, the events at Ford's Theatre thrust him into the nation's highest office. Johnson faced a nearly impossible task—to succeed America's greatest chief executive, to bind the nation's wounds after the Civil War, and to work with a Congress controlled by the so-called Radical Republicans. Annette Gordon-Reed, one of America's leading historians of slavery, shows how ill-suited Johnson was for this daunting task.

This is a major political biography of a great American president - who won a war, transformed the government, and doubled the size of the United States...in four years. When Polk was sworn in as the 11th president, what followed was one of the most consequential presidencies in history.

George Washington, the first president of the United States, is much more than a monument on Mount Rushmore. Who was Washington, the general, president, and husband? He was first and foremost a man of impeccable honor which, despite military adversity and political wrangling, never abandoned him. The Founding Fathers who squabbled and competed among themselves did agree on one thing: Only Washington could lead the country, first in the country’s military fight for freedom and then as the man charged with transforming 13 individual states into a united country.

A biography of the responsible and dutiful 10th president of the United States, who was the first to take over the office after an elected president died in office. John Tyler: A Fascinating Biography of the 10th United States President is the true story of a man who was thrust into leadership when his predecessor’s term ended after just 31 days. Despite stepping up to save the country from chaos, John Tyler would soon lose favor with his own party, the Whigs. John Tyler would never relent in his obligation to the office or his duty to the people.

Benjamin Harrison, the “Centennial President,” failed to achieve many of his goals (for instance, he was unable to secure passage of federal leg­islation to ensure public school education and voting rights for African Americans in the South). Yet he successfully pressed Congress to pass the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to deal with the growing threat posed by cor­porate trusts and monopolies.

Despite his promising start as a young man, by his early 50s Chester A. Arthur was known as the crooked crony of New York machine boss Roscoe Conkling. For years Arthur had been perceived as unfit to govern, not only by critics and the vast majority of his fellow citizens but by his own conscience. As President James A. Garfield struggled for his life, Arthur knew better than his detractors that he failed to meet the high standard a president must uphold. And yet, from the moment President Arthur took office, he proved to be not just honest but brave.

When one is looking quickly over the lives of the Presidents of the United States, it is easy to overlook William Henry Harrison. After all, he only served as the Chief Executive for 30 days, and he spent the majority of those in bed, fighting for his life and eventually losing. However, to ignore Harrison because he served such a short time in the White House is just as foolish as ignoring Patrick Henry or Alexander Hamilton because they were never elected to the nation's highest office.

Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad.

In “the most comprehensive Garfield biography in almost fifty years” (The Wall Street Journal), C.W. Goodyear charts the life and times of one of the most remarkable Americans ever to win the Presidency. Progressive firebrand and conservative compromiser; Union war hero and founder of the first Department of Education; Supreme Court attorney and abolitionist preacher; mathematician and canalman; crooked election-fixed and clean-government champion; Congressional chieftain and gentleman-farmer; the last president to be born in a log cabin; the second to be assassinated.

Of the presidents who died of natural causes during their term in office, arguably the most preventable was that of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States. Despite holding the record for the shortest presidential term of merely a month, William Henry Harrison could never be deemed a failure, though he certainly saw his fair share of them.

This new biography of Van Buren—the first full-scale portrait in four decades—charts his ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Offering vivid profiles of the day's leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), James Bradley's book depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.

This is a major political biography of a great American president - who won a war, transformed the government, and doubled the size of the United States...in four years. When Polk was sworn in as the 11th president, what followed was one of the most consequential presidencies in history.

Worst. President. Ever. flips the great presidential biography on its head, offering an enlightening - and highly entertaining - account of poor James Buchanan's presidency to prove once and for all that, well, few leaders could have done worse. But author Robert Strauss does much more, leading listeners out of Buchanan's terrible term in office to explore with insight and humor his own obsession with presidents, and ultimately the entire notion of ranking our presidents.

Zachary Taylor, a professional soldier and sugar planter with no previous political experience, held the office of president for barely sixteen months before dying of acute gastroenteritis. A war hero before moving into the White House, he immediately confronted a rogue effort to seize Cuba and had to address issues involving slavery in the new territories acquired from Mexico.