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The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game | 
 enlarge | Author: Alvin S. Felzenberg
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 12258
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0465002919
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.099
EAN: 9780465002917
ASIN: 0465002919
Publication Date: June 9, 2008
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Product Description
It’s a perennial pastime to rate U.S. presidents on an all-time ranking: Certain presidents were “Great,” others were “Near-Great,” and so on down to “Failures” and “Unmitigated Disasters.” (OK, we made that last category up.) But as Alvin Felzenberg points out, there are many flaws with these rating systems. Despite reams of new historical information, the rankings never seem to change very much. They all favor a certain kind of president-those who tended to increase executive power. That aside, the idea of rating presidential performance on a simple linear scale is absurd. The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn’t) breaks presidential performance into easily understandable categories-character, vision, competence, foreign policy, economic policy, human rights, and legacy-and assesses, for each category, the best and worst. The result is a surprisingly fresh look at how the various presidents stack up against each other, with some of the “greats” coming off far worse than their supposedly mediocre colleagues.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Fresh, unconvential take on presidential ratings August 19, 2008
Reviews criticizing this book for its supposed conservative bias are off target. (For example, Lyndon Johnson, generally a conservative bete-noire, comes in for great praise for his role in civil rights.) Anyone who's read the book will know that its most original contribution is assigning credit and blame, where appropriate, to lesser-known presidents whose actions had an important impact on economic history, civil rights, etc. For example, the discussions of the civil rights accomplishments of oft-neglected presidents like Grant and Coolidge, or of the various failings of an oft-praised president like Madison, add much new to our generally facile understanding of these presidents.
Of course, many readers may disagree with the author's characterizations of Reagan, which are probably the most controversial element of the book, but the sections on Reagan are neither hagiography nor polemic; they present facts in a measured fashion, and readers are free to interpret them differently than the author does. That does not detract from the overall value of this excellent and thorougly-researched book for readers of all political stripes.
Finally, readers interested in US economic history will find this book a fascinating review of economic policy, especially the monetary system, from the early republic through the modern era of the Federal Reserve system.
This book is highly recommended for readers of all political backgrounds. Though they may disagree with a few of the conclusions, the author's scholarship is undeniable, and Democratic-leaning readers interested in civil rights will find the book's discussion of those issues especially interesting.
Proudly conservative take on ratings game August 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I noticed that most of the negative reviews of this book seem to come from liberals. Well you have a right to your opinion -- and by God! I have a right to mine.
The presidential ratings game the Schlesingers started is so slanted toward the left as to be virtually worthless. It seems that the surest way of getting a high rating is to participate in yet another expansion of federal power.
After all, historians are biased in favor of presidents who did something they can write about. Advocates of federal restraint, like Cleveland and Coolidge, make dull copy.
Let's face it -- the presidential ratings game is just that. It's less factual than the sportswriters' votes for the college football championship.
Felzenberg introduces a measure of discipline by breaking the ratings into six classifications, weighted equally for the overall score.
Liberals should be able to take comfort from the high rankings awarded to Truman and FDR, the latter despite a fairly tough critique of the New Deal. The author is, if anything, even more tough on Hoover, noting that many policies we associate with the New Deal started with the Republicans.
The difference here is that at least some in the GOP, as embodied by Ronaldus Magnus, learned that the best thing the government can do in an economic downturn is let the market work itself out. The Democrats, on the other hand, evidently learned nothing, and still view the New Deal as a public policy triumph, when in fact it prolonged the Great Depression.
The only other long depression in American history followed Andrew Jackson's demolition of the national bank. Is there a pattern here?
As an unapologetic conservative, I'm a little disappointed that my all-time favorite Democrat, Grover Cleveland, didn't score higher.
Actually, Felzenberg is fairly open to big-government policies, as witnessed by his ranking of Theodore Roosevelt third behind Lincoln and Washington. I don't believe that anyone had coined the phrase "big government conservative" during TR's lifetime, but it fits like a glove.
Much as I admire TR for his undoubted patriotism and colorful personality, the really outstanding president of that era was the martyred William McKinley, who inherited the mantle of limited government from Grover Cleveland.
Of course, it's all a game, and this book was written to provoke debates. Felzenberg does a vastly better job defending his ratings than any other historian I've read who attempted the same task.
I don't have to agree -- just indulge me by arguing from facts and logic instead of slogans and fear, which is all the left has been offering for decades.
I'm recommending this book to all my conservative friends. In fact, on the phone the other day, my friend and I were wracking our brains for the absolute worst president in American history.
We both blurted out simulataneously: "Woodrow Wilson!"
Actually Felzenberg gives the booby prize to James Buchanan for having allowed the War Between the States to happen.
The way I figure it, Buchanan was a weakling, but slavery was such a poisonous issue that something had to break.
Wilson -- the beau ideal of the sanctimonious Puritan reformer -- dragged the nation into a European war we had no business in. After victory in 1918, Wilson ensured we would lose the peace by insisting on the breakup of the Hapsburg Empire. Supposedly, this was to be done along ethnic lines, but the reality is that the Hapsburg successor states were nearly as polyglot as the "ramshackle empire" itself. The resulting power vacuum left Central Europe and the Balkans ripe for devastation by fascism, Nazism, and communism.
Good going, Mr. President!
 A Neo-con perspective of the Leaders We Deserved August 11, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The author, Alvin Felzenberg, ranks the presidents based on a Conservative agenda. The reader will not discover new or intriguing insights. For example, Felzenberg regards George W. Bush as an inspirational, big picture president and awards Bush high marks for his deft handling of the domestic economy. Felzenberg states that only when we are all dead and gone will America and the world come to appreciate the Bush administration (in light of the numerous domestic and foreign tragedies that continue to unfold, what other argument exists). Conversely, the vast majority of historians rank the Bush presidency as the worst or, at best, one of the five worst ever. Regarding the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Felzenberg refuses to credit Carter for being the only president to have negotiated a true and lasting Middle East Peace Agreement- The Camp David Peace Accord.
Do not waste the money unless you wish to read a thoroughly predictable and biased assessment.
 A Disappointment-- Just as Subjective as Anyone Else August 8, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book does seem well researched, and is lucidly written. But it claims to offer a fresh and new method for rating our Presidents, but does not, really. It is just as biased in its appraisals as any of the other stuides of this sort that have come before. If Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and his cohort lean somewhat to the left, then Felzenberg tacks just as steadily to the right. I mean: Reagan the FOURTH greatest President of all (just ahead of EISENHOWER)? Strict ahderence to conservative, supply-side monetary policy seems to guarantee a President's higher ranking than concern for human rights and social justice. And when he hints that the present Bush train wreck is an "important and transformational" presidency-- uh-oh-- We can imagine where "W" might score in subsequent volumes of Felzenberg's work.
 Nixon's Accomplishments and Rating Out of Sync July 14, 2008
8 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is an interesting book for those of us who enjoy the parlor game of rating presidents. But I found a real disconnect in the discussion of Nixons' shortcomings and accomplishments relative to his rating. While the author credits Nixon with the peaceful desegregation of schools, environmental laws, China, detente, going off the gold standard, enlightened Native American policies, attempts at welfare reform and national health coverage and other accomplishments, he ends up barely ahead of Pierce and Buchanan and below everyone else. It seems that other Presidents are praised despite their White House horrors--JFK and the Mafia, Wilson and his racism, etc, but Nixon is damned despite his accomplishments. Yes, give him a low grade for "character", but give him his due when he deserves it--or at least treat the others with the same benchmarks.
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