I am listening to The Bully Pulpit on audiobook now. What do you think of it?
Runners up include ... Will Durant, ...
"Popular" is the key word there. Durant is for people who want an introduction to history. Then they can read more to get perspective -- or never read anything else ever again. His books are very dated now, and there are plenty of better alternatives, but it wasn't an unworthy project when he started it. I see him as similar to Mortimer Adler, ridiculous in some ways, but not without some redeeming qualities.
I haven’t read that one. For the last 2 years, if it’s not Ronald Reagan, I probably haven’t read it, with the exception of Chandler’s “Campaigns of Napoleon.”
I can’t stomach Goodwin ever since I was assigned “Rivals” in a US History Masters course. My response paper was that the prof didn’t want to read it himself and just threw it at us. Total waste of time.
I learned nothing from Bully Pulpit, which pissed me off because there is yet interesting territory there that she and her ghost writers ignored. Waste of time.
As for Durant, I take that one back — careless memory. I love Story of Civilization and other big picture histories he and Ariel wrote.
I was thinking of Charles Beard — oops! — and his insipid “Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States.”