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William Howard Taft: The American Presidents Series: The 27th President, 1909-1913 by Jeffrey Rosen
bobednj's review against another edition
4.0
This book was much better than what I expected The political tensions were clearly explained and related to the current political currents. This exploration of a bottom tier president was top notch.
kennethjohnston9's review against another edition
3.0
Started this as a Presidents' Day read.
Our fattest and one of the most boring presidents is also one of my favorites, simply because he didn't want to be president. This history is a refreshing history of an administration that faced no major crises or wars and focused on trade and labor disputes. That's about it. Taft stayed principled about the Constitution and not extending executive power. He is interesting because of how uninteresting he was, especially between the populism of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
The end of the book concerns his much more successful, and happy and thin, tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a follow-on career unlike that of any other president. He had been offered a seat on the Court several times, but reluctantly refused for various reasons. The cases covered during his tenure aren't terribly exciting, but the author only highlight the ones with important ramifications. Decently enjoyable brisk coverage of a unique president.
Also thank him for the Lincoln Memorial, cherry blossoms, the Supreme Court building, and the Oval Office.
Our fattest and one of the most boring presidents is also one of my favorites, simply because he didn't want to be president. This history is a refreshing history of an administration that faced no major crises or wars and focused on trade and labor disputes. That's about it. Taft stayed principled about the Constitution and not extending executive power. He is interesting because of how uninteresting he was, especially between the populism of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
The end of the book concerns his much more successful, and happy and thin, tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a follow-on career unlike that of any other president. He had been offered a seat on the Court several times, but reluctantly refused for various reasons. The cases covered during his tenure aren't terribly exciting, but the author only highlight the ones with important ramifications. Decently enjoyable brisk coverage of a unique president.
Also thank him for the Lincoln Memorial, cherry blossoms, the Supreme Court building, and the Oval Office.
icgerrard's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting bio and made me wish I’d picked a longer book on Taft. The book's thesis is intriguing, however the epilogue is a bit heavy handed. The argument, repeated ad nauseum considering how short the text is, is that Taft was an unappreciated example of a (the only?) 20th century president to believe that the president could only act on specifically ennumerated powers. That in such scenarios, his powers were extremely broad, but that in everything else he was powerless essentially. This is repeatedly juxtaposed to Roosevelt and Wilson, and really all presidents after him, who erred more on the side that anything not explicitly forbidden is permitted. He held other weird opinions like thinking the president should be apolitical, and that representative democracy was opposed to swift action since it dulled the filtering effects on mob passion. This extended to a disdain for even using executive orders. Basically, his theory of the executive seemed strange to me insofar as he didn't seem to think of it as a method for reacting to present problems faster than the legislative and judicial branches can, something I thought Hamilton for one pretty clearly believed. All these flaws as an executive, however, made him a more well suited supreme Court Justice. Which is all he wanted out of life anyway. Nonetheless, I’m not sure we should find ourselves thinking of Taft as uniquely relevant to modern politics, as the epilogue insists. He was still lame as an executive, whatever you think of the modern age.
kbelcher1992's review against another edition
3.0
I really enjoyed this book about President Taft. It was interesting to see a president who didn't appear to aspire to the presidency but rather the supreme court. I don't know that I would have the same political stances of president Taft but he does come across as a man that I could respect. I appreciate his thoroughness in a stance of sticking with the law. Overall another good book in the American presidents series. I probably enjoyed this one more than the others that are near it in order. I would highly recommend both the book and the series.
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