Just finished reading: Presidential Spirits
Author Dan Coonan and I met at History Camp this summer while learning how to work all the tech for our respective talks. He generously sent me a copy of his book, Presidential Spirits. I just finished it. In my push to read as many books as possible before the year ends, I didn’t plan to doodle or blog about this one. (It’s a novel after all!) Couldn’t quite escape, but I managed to contain this to six doodles.
As always, no spoilers. If you’ve read the book, let me know what you think. The ending gave me a lot to mull over…
That time the senate picked the VP
Martin Van Buren won, but Old Dick Johnson was shy by one vote in the electoral college. It was (for the first and only time) up to the senate to pick the vice president. From the top two candidates. But still!
The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn, by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers // WRAP-UP POST
Carving out of a banana
Theodore Roosevelt regretted his pick for the Supreme Court — Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. According to Rich Cohen, Holmes “cleared the way” for the “global corporation that exists both inside and outside American law, that is everywhere and nowhere, and never dies.”
Roosevelt grumbled “I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that.”
They’ll boo you
When George W. Bush threw out the first pitch after 9/11 (in game three of the World Series), Derek Jeter had some advice for him:
“Throw from the mount or else they’ll boo you. But don’t bounce it. They’ll boo you.”
Check out his pitch here. (I got a choked up rewatching it.)
Decision Points, by George W. Bush
Blood of patriots
Thomas Jefferson believed “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” After all, “it is its natural manure.”
The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, by Harlow Giles Unger
Without France (and their money!) …
… we wouldn’t have beat the British. Which made me think of the time France asked us to pay her back buuuut we owed the British money. [shrugs]
The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, by Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky // WRAP-UP POST
The man in the arena
There he is. Theodore Roosevelt shows up in all of my posts these days.
The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President, by Edward F. O’Keefe // WRAP-UP POST
Have you read Presidential Spirits?
Let me know in the comments below.
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Only 6 doodles!