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.”
Scratch that on Durant, sorry. Beard’s “Economic Interpretation” is my issue, although, again, I really like his w/ Mary Beard, “The Rise of American Civilization,” a beautiful work.