From the Book - First edition.
A note to readers on style
Introduction / Susan Swain
The magnificent lion / Richard Norton Smith
A brief history of presidential rankings / Douglas Brinkley
The top ten. Abraham Lincoln / Harold Holzer
George Washington / Ron Chernow
Franklin D. Roosevelt / Doris Kearns Goodwin
Dwight D Eisenhower / William I. Hitchcock
Harry S. Truman / Aida D. Donald
Thomas Jefferson / Willard Sterne Randall
John F. Kennedy / Robert Dallek
Ronald Reagan / Lou Cannon
Lyndon B. Johnson / Robert A. Caro
The men in the middle. Woodrow Wilson / A. Scott Berg
Barack Obama / David J. Garrow
James Monroe / John Ferling
James K. Polk / John Seigenthaler
William McKinley / Robert W. Merry
Jame Madison / Noah Feldman
Andrew Jackson / Mark R. Cheathem
John Adams / Gordon S. Wood
George H. W. Bush / Jeffrey A. Engel
John Quincy Adams / James Traub
Ulysses S. Grant / Ronald C. White
Grover Cleveland / H. Paul Jeffers
William Howard Taft / Jeffrey Rosen
Gerald R. Ford / James Cannon
Jimmy Carter / Michael J. Gerhardt
Calvin Coolidge / Amity Shlaes
Richard M. Nixon / Evan Thomas
James A. Garfield / Kenneth D. Ackerman
Benjamin Harrison / Charles W. Calhoun
Zachary Taylor / Elbert B. Smith
Rutherford B. Hayes / Ari Hoogenbom
George W. Bush / James Mann
And all the rest. Martin Van Buren / Michael Douglas Henderson
Chester A. Arthur / Scott S. Greenberger
Herbert Hoover / Richard Norton Smith
Millard Fillmore / Edna Greene Medford
William Henry Harrison / Ronald G. Shafer
John Tyler / Edward P. Grapol
Warren G. Harding / John W. Dean
Franklin Pierce / Peter A. Wallner
Andrew Johnson / David O. Stewart
James Buchanan / Robert Strauss
Historians' perspectives on president Donald J. Trump / Douglas Brinkley, Edna Greene Medford, and Richard Norton Smith
Postscript: The presidency, national identity, and the pursuit of equal justice / Edna Greene Medford
Appendix I: Historians' survey on presidential leadership, total scores and overall rankings
Appendix II: US presidents in chronological order.
