num_pages: 752
description: From a preeminent presidential historian comes a groundbreaking and often surprising narrative of Americas wartime chief executives It sometimes seems in retrospect as if America has been almost continuously at war. Ten years in the research and writing Presidents of War is a fresh magisterial intimate look at a procession of American leaders as they took the nation into conflict and mobilized their country for victory. It brings us into the room as they make the most difficult decisions that face any President at times sending hundreds of thousands of American men and women to their deaths. From James Madison and the War of 1812 to recent times we see them struggling with Congress the courts the press their own advisors and antiwar protesters; seeking comfort from their spouses families and friends; and dropping to their knees in prayer. We come to understand how these Presidents were able to withstand the pressures of warboth physically and emotionallyor were broken by them. Beschlosss interviews with surviving participants in the drama and his discoveries in original letters diaries once-classified national security documents and other sources help him to tell this story in a way it has not been told before. Presidents of War combines the sense of being there with the overarching context of two centuries of American history. This important book shows how far we have traveled from the time of our Founders who tried to constrain presidential power to our modern day when a single leader has the potential to launch nuclear weapons that can destroy much of the human race.
language: English
title: Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times
publisher: Crown