Books We’re Reading
By the Editors
Calvin Coolidge: The Presidency and Philosophy of a Progressive Conservative by M. C. Murphy (McFarland, 2023)
Murphy, a political analyst, examines Coolidge’s brand of progressivism. Yes, Coolidge secured substantial tax cuts. But Murphy argues that the president aimed first to secure surpluses and reduce the federal debt.
Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt’s Legacy by Jim Powell (Crown Forum, 2006)
Theodore Roosevelt said, “I don’t think that any harm comes from the concentration of power in one man’s hands.” Powell shows how wrong Roosevelt was.
William Howard Taft: The 27th President, 1909–1913 by Jeffrey Rosen (Times Books, 2018)
TR chose Taft as his successor in 1908—and then ran against him in 1912. Rosen, a law professor, examines why in this entry in the American Presidents series.
Mark Twain: Man in White: The Grand Adventure of His Final Years by Michael Shelden (Random House, 2010)
Few harbored as much scorn for Theodore Roosevelt as Twain did. The writer privately said of TR, “I find him destitute of morals & not respectworthy.” He also wrote that Roosevelt stood “ready to kick the Constitution into the back yard whenever it gets in the way.”
The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance by David T. Beito (Independent Institute, 2023)
FDR routinely lands near or even at the top of presidential rankings. But Beito examines how Roosevelt’s administration abused power and violated human rights.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (Doubleday, 2017)
Coolidge makes a cameo in the film based on this book. Grann recounts the murders that targeted Osage tribe members. The Coolidge administration called on J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation to solve the case.
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage (Viking, 2022)
This biography of Hoover has been honored with the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Bancroft Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (Knopf, 2005)
This masterful biography of the brutal Communist dictator is the inaugural selection of the Coolidge Honors Book Club.
The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World by Samuel Gregg (Encounter Books, 2022)
Free markets have come under fire from critics left, right, and center. Gregg restates the case for a market economy—“but in a manner which recognizes that we are not living in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, or 2010s anymore.”
Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream by David Leonhardt (Random House, 2023)
The moment has come, Pulitzer Prize winner Leonhardt posits, for both left and right to turn to “democratic capitalism” and “a system in which the government recognizes its crucial role in guiding the economy.”