num_pages: 324
description: An entertaining exploration into the death stories of our nations greatest leadersand the wild ways we choose to remember and memorialize them.In Dead Presidents public radio host Brady Carlson takes readers to presidential gravesites monuments and memorials to tell the death stories of our greatest leaders. Mixing biography and travelogue Carlson explores whether William Henry Harrison really died of a cold why Zachary Taylors remains were exhumed 140 years after his death and how what killed James A. Garfield wasnt an assassins bullet. He tells the surprising stories of the Washington Monument Mount Rushmore and Grants Tomb. And he explains why Hooverball is still played in Iowa why Millard Fillmores final resting place is beside that of funk legend Rick James and why Ohio and Alaska continue to battle over the name of Mt. McKinley. With an eye for neglected places and offbeat people reminiscent of Tony Horwitz and Sarah Vowell Carlson shows that the ways we memorialize our presidents reveal as much about us as about the men themselves.
language: English
title: Dead Presidents: An American Adventure into the Strange Deaths and Surprising Afterlives of Our Nation's Leaders
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company