George Washington:

James Flexner’s four-volume series:

Follow-Up:

Washington by Douglas Southall Freeman (Richard Harwell’s 1968 abridgment of Pulitzer Prize-winning 7-volume series)

George Washington: A Biography by Washington Irving (Charles Neider’s 1976 abridgment of 5-volume series)

John Adams:

Follow-Up:

Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (2017) by Gordon Wood

Thomas Jefferson:

Dumas Malone’s six-volume series:

Follow-Up:

Thomas Jefferson (2004) by R. B. Bernstein

Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty (2017) by John Boles

James Madison:

James Madison (2011) by Richard Brookhiser REVIEW (4 stars)

Madison and Jefferson (2010) by Andrew Burstein REVIEW (4 stars)

Follow-Up:

James Madison (author’s 1970 abridgment of his 6-volume series) by Irving Brant

Becoming Madison: The Extraordinary Origins of the Least Likely Founding Father (2015) by Michael Signer

James Monroe:

John Quincy Adams:

John Quincy Adams (2012) by Harlow Unger REVIEW (3¾ stars)

Follow-Up:

Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams (1849) by William H Seward

John Quincy Adams (1949/1956) by Samuel Flagg Bemis (2 volumes)

John Quincy Adams: American Visionary (2014) by Fred Kaplan

The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics (2017) by William Cooper

Andrew Jackson:

Robert Remini’s three-volume series:

Martin Van Buren:

William Henry Harrison:

John Tyler:

John Tyler (2008) by Gary May REVIEW (4 stars)

Follow-Up:

And Tyler Too: A Biography of John and Julia Gardiner Tyler (1963) by Robert Seager

James Polk:

Follow-Up:

James K. Polk: A Political Biography (2 volumes) (1922) by Eugene McCormac

Zachary Taylor:

Zachary Taylor (2008) by John S. D. Eisenhower REVIEW (3¾ stars)

Follow-Up:

Millard Fillmore:

Millard Fillmore (2011) by Paul Finkelman REVIEW (2½ stars)

Follow-Up:

Millard Fillmore (2001) by Robert J. Scarry

The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (1988) by Elbert Smith

Franklin Pierce:

Franklin Pierce (2010) by Michael Holt REVIEW (4 stars)

James Buchanan:

James Buchanan (2004) by Jean Baker REVIEW (3½ stars)

Abraham Lincoln:

Lincoln (1995) by David Herbert Donald REVIEW (4¼ stars)

Abraham Lincoln (1916) by Lord Charnwood REVIEW (3½ stars)

Follow-Up:

Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 volumes) (1890) by John Hay and John Nicolay

Herndon’s Life of Lincoln (1888) by William Herndon, edited by Paul Angle

Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (2014) by Richard Brookhiser

Father Lincoln: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and His Boys (2016) by Alan Manning

Andrew Johnson:

Follow-Up:

The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation (2019) by Brenda Wineapple

Ulysses S. Grant:

Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow REVIEW (4½ stars)

Follow-Up:

The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (2017) by Charles Calhoun

Rutherford B. Hayes:

Follow-Up:

Rutherford B. Hayes: And His America (1954) by Harry Barnard

James Garfield:

Follow-Up:

The Garfield Orbit (1978) by Margaret Leech

Chester Arthur:

Chester Alan Arthur (2004) by Zachary Karabell REVIEW (3¾ stars)

Follow-Up:

The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur (2017) by Scott Greenberger



Grover Cleveland:

Benjamin Harrison:

Benjamin Harrison (2005) by Charles Calhoun REVIEW (3½ stars)

Harry J. Sievers’s three-volume series:

William McKinley:

Follow-Up:

President McKinley: Architect of the American Century (2017) by Robert Merry



Theodore Roosevelt:

The Republican Roosevelt (1954) by John Blum REVIEW (not rated)

Edmund Morris’s three-volume series:

Follow-Up:

I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt by Paul Gronahl (2004)

William Taft:

Woodrow Wilson:

Wilson (2013) by A. Scott Berg REVIEW (4 stars)

Follow-Up:

Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters (7 vols) (1927-39) by Ray Stannard Baker

Wilson (5 vols) (1947-65) by Arthur S. Link

The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made (2018) by Patricia O’Toole

Warren Harding:

Follow-Up:

Incredible Era: The Life and Times of Warren Gamaliel Harding (1939) by Samuel H. Adams

Calvin Coolidge:

Coolidge (2013) by Amity Shlaes REVIEW (3½ stars)

Herbert Hoover:

Herbert Hoover (2009) by William Leuchtenburg REVIEW (3½ stars)

Follow-Up:

“An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover” (1984) by Richard Norton Smith

“Herbert Hoover: A Life” (2016) by Glen Jeansonne

Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (2017) by Kenneth Whyte



Six-volume “George Nash” series:

“The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer 1874-1914” (Vol 1) (1983) by George Nash

“The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary,1918-1928” (Vol 4) (2011) by K Clements

Franklin D. Roosevelt:

FDR (2007) by Jean Edward Smith REVIEW (4½ stars)

James MacGregor Burns’s two-volume series:

Geoffrey Ward’s two-volume series:

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s three-volume series:

Follow-Up:

Kenneth Davis’s 5-volume series on FDR published between 1972 and 2000

“The Mantle of Command: FDR at War (1941-42)” (Vol 1) by Nigel Hamilton (2014)

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life (2017) by Robert Dallek



Harry Truman:

Follow-Up:

Dwight Eisenhower:

Eisenhower (1999) by Geoffrey Perret REVIEW (3½ stars)

Stephen Ambrose’s two-volume series:

Follow-Up:

“Ike: An American Hero” (2007) by Michael Korda

The Age of Eisenhower (2018) by William Hitchcock

“Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower’s Final Mission” (2017) by Bret Baier

John F. Kennedy:

Herbert Parmet’s two-volume series:

Follow-Up:

The Dark Side of Camelot (1998) by Seymour Hersch

Lyndon B. Johnson:

Robert Dallek’s two-volume series:

Robert Caro’s Ongoing Series:

Follow-Up:

LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (2006) by Randall Woods

LBJ: A Life (1999) by Irwin Unger

Richard Nixon:

Stephen Ambrose’s three-volume series:

Gerald Ford:

Follow-Up:

The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (1995) by John Robert Greene

Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s (2005) by Yanek Mieczkowski

When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency (2018) by Donald Rumsfeld

James E. Carter:

Ronald Reagan:

Lou Cannon’s (unplanned) two-volume series:

Steven Hayward’s two-volume series:

Craig Shirley’s (informal) four-volume series:

Follow-Up:

Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999) by Edmund Morris

President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination (2005) by Richard Reeves

The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (2006) by Paul Kengor

George H. W. Bush:

Follow-Up:

William J. Clinton:

Follow-Up:

Bill Clinton: The American Presidents Series (2017) by Michael Tomasky

George W. Bush:

Bush (2016) by Jean Edward Smith REVIEW (3¼ stars)

Follow-Up:

First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty (1999) by Bill Minutaglio

Barack Obama:

Follow-Up:

Obama: The Call of History (2017) by Peter Baker