PRESIDENTIAL COURAGE Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989

Historian Michael Beschloss offers vignettes on the courage of various American presidents from Washington to Reagan. Some of the stories are well known to educated citizens; some are not. Andrew Jackson, for example, hounded the Bank of the United States out of business (well known) while under immense pressure from the business establishment (nicely detailed here). Beschloss is careful and well paced in his role as narrator, rarely showing emotion and pronouncing every name and foreign phrase with precision. His baritone, a little sonorous, carries the stories along comfortably. He avoids the trap of dramatizing these glimpses into the past--it just wouldn't work with a book such as this. Overall, he does a decent job. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 07]