And he can also turn to the wealth of material that has been written about and by our chief executives.
Presidents make good copy, and that's as attractive to historians as it is to journalists.
There are thousands of presidential biographies out there. Others are so dense they could be used to build houses. Ironically, the person least equipped to do that is usually the president himself, says Vanderbilt professor Erwin C. Hargrove, author of five books on the presidency. They are written by factories of staffers and are self-congratulatory. Presidents should read about presidents, Fred Greenstein says, but there's no guarantee they will profit from doing so.