Background

While it might seem like the reading of 42 books is a big undertaking, the selecting of the books is turning out to be a major challenge in itself. Certainly, for some presidents, I'm expecting to run into a long list of possible biographies to read. Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, etc.

But as I began thinking about what sort of Washington biography to start with, I realized that it would make sense to get a little background on how the Presidency was designed, intended, and what the debates were around the time of the Constitutional Convention that created it. So I could start with the Constitution. But even before that is the Revolution, and the colonial period that led up to it.

The questions I'm running into now are how to focus the scope of this project so it doesn't turn into an attempt to understand and review all facets of American history.

I've decided it's worth putting in a little background reading right here at the beginning, to help me define what it is I'm looking for and hoping to get out of this exercise. With that in mind, I've found a few different books to help me get started, which I'll respond to in the next several postings.

First is A Peoples' History of the American Revolution - part of a series edited by Howard Zinn, world-renowned author of the fascinating and essential A Peoples' History of the United States. A few different people I've told about this project have brought up the important point that I could end up frustrated by reading a long and winding tale of the heroes of American history, without touching the surface of the real cultural context of their presidencies. With that in mind, I do plan to contextualize this reading of biographies with books like this that will hopefully give a balance to the all-too-frequent deification of rich white men in our country's historical record. I'm really excited about this book.

I've also checked out 1776 by David McCullough, who's recently had a lot of attention for his biography of John Adams. I like what I've seen of his work, and I think more recent books like this one (written in a context that generally pays more attention to the difference between what really happened and what we'd like to believe about ourselves, good or bad) will probably over a more broad perspective than earlier books.

The Washington biography that's been recommended to me by a few different people is His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis. Looks good, and I can't wait to read it!