Image courtesy of PublicAffairs
New book ranks U.S. presidents
How do you measure the success of our nation's leader — the president of the United States?
C-SPAN's Susan Swain and Brian Lamb have co-authored a new book that delves into this topic with help from some of the country's preeminent historians.
Swain, a longtime resident of Alexandria and co-CEO and president of the cable TV network that specializes in public affairs, sat down with Alexandria Living Magazine to talk about the new book, "The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America's Best — and Worst — Chief Executives."
History buffs are in for a treat.
The book is Swain's 10th book project at the network. "They're all collections of our interviews," she said. "We edit them down into essays, they're usually seven or eight pages apiece. They're the ultimate busy person's book because you can put it down and pick it up and not lose the train of the editorial content because each one stands alone."
Photo courtesy of C-SPAN
Author Susan Swain, co-CEO and president, C-SPAN
For the past two decades, every time a president has left office, C-SPAN has done a national survey of 100 historians to gauge the ranking of the presidents. Three presidential historians — Douglas Brinkley, Edna Greene Medford and Richard Norton Smith — helped the network put together a dynamic scoring of presidents using 10 leadership qualities.
Those qualities are:
- Public persuasion
- Crisis leadership
- Economic management
- Moral authority
- International relations
- Administrative skills
- Relations with Congress
- Vision/setting an agenda
- Pursued equal justice for all
- Performance within context of the times
Working with their publisher, PublicAffairs in New York, C-SPAN went to them with an idea of doing a straight chronology of U.S. presidents ... or writing about the presidents and where they fell in the leadership survey. "They liked that idea," Swain said.
The book is organized by rankings, with the top 10 presidents first, followed by "the men in the middle" and finally the bottom 10. Each chapter is taken from an interview conducted by Brian Lamb, founder and executive chairman of C-SPAN, with an author who has written about each president.
Not surprisingly, Swain said, President Abraham Lincoln "is the tops on our survey as he is on every survey." Featured in the Lincoln chapter is an interview with author Harold Holzer. "It's on that period of time between November, when Lincoln was elected, and March, when he took office and how he dealt with the secession crisis," Swain said, and "how he dealt with states marching toward what would ultimately become the Civil War, how he organized himself for the presidency, dealt with threats against his life, how he packed up his house and gave his dog away. Just aspects of Lincoln that are not conventional. That's what this book is really all about."
Alexandria's favorite son, George Washington, fares well, ranked second by historians in the book. He is ranked first in economic management, moral authority and performance within the context of the times. Author Ron Chernow is featured in the Washington chapter, discussing his Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the first president.
President James Buchanan comes in "dead last," as he does on other lists as well, Swain pointed out. Author Robert Strauss is featured in this chapter, discussing his book on Buchanan titled "Worst. President. Ever." The author said "there are all kinds of ways to approach the presidency," Swain noted. Strauss said "what he wanted to show was how to not ever approach the presidency."
Not ranked in the book: President Trump, since he has not completed a term in office; but he does have his own chapter. The three historians (Douglas Brinkley, Edna Greene Medford and Richard Norton Smith) gathered for a podcast interview about Trump last August and excerpts are featured in the book.
The book will be printed in March, coinciding with C-SPAN's 40th anniversary and available April 23.
C-SPAN has teamed up with Mount Vernon for an event to be held there that evening, April 23, at 7 p.m., when history lovers will get a chance to hear more about the book from Lamb and the three historians about the rankings, stories of the nation's presidents and their leadership styles. Tickets for the event are free but you must register ahead at: https://bit.ly/2BWJZol. C-SPAN will air the event live on its network.
Look for a discussion of the book on C-SPAN on Wednesday, April 24. The book is available for pre-order now: https://www.c-span.org/thePresidents. Any royalties will go to the nonprofit C-SPAN Education Foundation, which supports the creation of history and civics teaching materials for middle and high school teachers and their students.
Be on the lookout for more about the book and Swain's views on her adopted hometown of Alexandria in an upcoming issue of our print magazine.
