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Rating: 
Summary: Richie's Picks: HAIL TO THE CHIEFS
Review: "The main cause of the Revolution, aside from all those Adamses, was the quantity of feisty, short-tempered people on this side of the Atlantic at the time, and the quantity of unusually bossy, fat-headed chumps on the other side, topped by poor George III, who suffered from funny feelings in his head." Sarcastic references to the temperament of John Adams, his relatives, and assorted descendants, which pop up on a regular basis throughout this book, are among the multitude of laugh out loud moments packed into this clever "tell-all" about the lives, wives, dinner parties, dalliances, and various personal difficulties that characterized the forty-three great white leaders who have served as our nation's Chief Executive. "John Adams, back in the beginning of it all, had always felt that the Presidency should be, well, not exactly hereditary, which would be undemocratic, but just naturally reserved for a group of the right sort of families whose sons would be properly educated and trained up for public service, and dedicated to knowing what was best for the rest of us rabble. The idea still hangs around to this day, but at the time some people were upset when Adams's son John Quincy turned up." A book that will delight and reward students who've paid attention in their middle school or high school American History classes, HAIL TO THE CHIEFS had me giggling and snorting page after page. "Grover Cleveland...weighed nearly three hundred pounds and wore an immense walrus mustache with bits of corned beef and cabbage in it. The orator Robert Ingersoll said he could 'slip his collar off over his head without unbuttoning it,' which gives you an idea of his neck, and he had a high squeaky voice and some unrefined personal habits. I've heard that when he was practicing law in Buffalo he couldn't be bothered to go down the hall and relieved himself through his office window, and once a passerby sued.
"People called him 'the Beast of Buffalo.' He was a bachelor, and no wonder." Footnotes, utilized for cheeky asides, are stacked up at the foot of many of the book's pages: "Andrew Johnson should not be confused with Andrew Jackson. He didn't have Jackson's charm, or anyone else's either. 2 2 The White House staff called him 'The Grim Presence.' " But, beyond the humor, this book provides fascinating stories and information about the Presidents that I have never run across elsewhere. The author notes of James Garfield (1881-1881): "Garfield was tall and handsome and genial and scholarly. He believed that strikers had a right to strike and black men to vote and might have been a historically Good President if he'd stuck around long enough." The author goes on to talk about Garfield's shooting at the hands of a disaffected job-seeker who wanted to be the American consul in Paris: "Everyone thought Garfield was a goner, and [Vice President] Arthur was already testing out the mattresses and deciding which furniture to get rid of, but at four in the morning the President was actually quite chipper and telling funny stories. "The doctors rallied round and tried everything they could lay hands on to dig for the bullet. The bullet was minding its own business and not bothering anyone, comfortably lodged behind the pancreas out of harm's way, but the doctors couldn't rest till they'd excavated. "Dr. Bliss hauled in the big Nelaton Probe and shoved it into the wound and twisted it around and around, looking for a pathway that felt like a bullet track. It made some interesting tracks of its own, and got wedged in the broken bits of a rib and had to be wrenched back out, but it didn't find any bullet. Then Bliss poked around with his fingers for a while, and called more doctors in from all over the country to poke with their fingers too, and pretty soon Garfield was a maze of secret passageways, but the bullet stayed put. "Then Alexander Graham Bell had a better idea. He was so pleased with his telephone that he thought it could do anything, and he rigged up a receiver with a primary and secondary coil that he said would hum when it got near the bullet. He brought it around, and they rubbed it all over Garfield, and once they did hear it hum, or anyway, they thought they did. 6 Bell showed the doctors where to go in and dig deeper and wider holes, and they did, but still no luck. 7 6 Some claim it was confused by the metal bedsprings...
7 The autopsy found it a good ten inches from where Bell said it was." HAIL TO THE CHIEFS is chock full of log cabins, land grabs, liquor, liars, and levity. Each chapter begins with a clearly reproduced full page portrait. (If there were one thing I would have added, it would have been a corresponding set of portraits of the equally quirky First Ladies whom we meet.) For those of us who've always seen many of the Presidents as interchangeable and unremarkable, HAIL TO THE CHIEFS reveals a uniquely bizarre, er, I mean human side to our fearless leaders. Richie Partington...
Rating: 
Summary: well-intended but the author isn't always right
Review: Barbara Holland has tried to make history fun, a most laudable goal which more writers and historians should pursue. But she lost a little credibility to me with her comments about James Buchanan. Ms. Holland rather cluelessly maintains that Buchanan was not gay, while the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that he was. It concerned me that she would make such an erroneous judgement without knowing the facts. Buchanan lived with Rufus Devane King for over 20 years, yet Holland thinks that just because Buchanan once asked a woman to marry him, he was straight. She evidently never considered that virtually all gay men prior to the current generation asked women to marry them, and almost all married as well. The Buchanan-Rufus King relationship was no secret to anyone... Even Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and Dolley Madison referred to King as Buchanan's spouse, and the fanatical Sarah Knox Polk hatefully refused to let her nieces and nephews come in contact with Buchanan because he was gay - folks then harbored Falwellian notions about all gay people, though they did not have the concept of "gay persons" in their vocabularies yet. Ms. Holland further revealed her cluelessness when, at a book talk, she asked an audience member "How did they know he was homosexual? Did he wear a dress?" This kind of insulting and absurd comment does not speak well for the author, who is clearly unaware that only a tiny percentage of gay men have ever donned any kind of female attire, and that, in fact, straight men are far, far more likely to wear a dress than gay men are. Making such a comment is akin to asking about a black person with the question "How did you know he was black? Did he tap dance?" It's an unbelievable insult and it casts a shadow over the legitimacy of her book. Nevertheless, I think this is a worthwhile book. But take it with a grain of salt. Historians, please do more of this kind of book, so that our children will finally learn their history. History is incredibly interesting indeed if only teachers will tell the truth. And do their research.
Rating:
Summary: Bushwacked
Review: HAIL TO THE CHIEFS is a wonderful overview of American history told through the actions of our Chief Executives. For me, the recent presidencies of Bush Sr, Bill Clinton and George Jr are particularly relevant. Barbara Holland's handling of our current leader is wonderfully on target, for she has the ability to strip away the his image and his posturing and cut to the core, thereby holding this President up to the ridicule he so richly deserves.
Rating:
Summary: Bushwacked
Review: Here's a book that's a lot of fun to read. Breezy, witty and studded with little-known facts about America's illustrious leaders. Holland's delightful style brings each president to life - quirks and all. Most worthwhile, no matter what your politics. A wonderful romp through America's history! I loved the earlier version (ending with Ronald Reagan) and I'm still chortling over this new one. A gem!
Rating:
Summary: Very funny!
Review: Here's a book that's a lot of fun to read. Breezy, witty and studded with little-known facts about America's illustrious leaders. Holland's delightful style brings each president to life - quirks and all. Most worthwhile, no matter what your politics. A wonderful romp through America's history! I loved the earlier version (ending with Ronald Reagan) and I'm still chortling over this new one. A gem!
Rating:
Summary: Makes the boring Presidents look interesting
Review: I must say, I picked up this book at a local bookseller because of my love for politics and history. from the beginning of the book I immediately was drawn into Barbara Hollands humorous demeanor and writing style. She brilliantly brings the past presidents to life and pokes fun where sarcasm is due. Before reading her book I did not know that much about the lesser-known presidents- aka Martin Van Buren etc... but even for the boring presidents (Harrison's 30 days in office) she makes the history entertaining and lively.
A must buy for any political science or history fan or even the casual reader interested in a good laugh tempered by true facts of our nation's past presidents.
Rating: 
Summary: 1776 and all that
Review: I read this book alongside "The Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents" by Cormac O'Brien (2004). The two books obviously have a lot in common, aiming as they do to reveal the "secrets" about our Chief Executives and demonstrate that they all have, or had, their flaws, their quirks, and probably more than their fair share of general weirdness. The two books tell many of the same stories, quote many of the same excerpts from the Nixon tapes, and even make the same obvious "joke" that James Monroe should have shown more originality than to die on July 4, since John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had already done that act. And they share the same People Magazine-style focus on personality and scandal ahead of questions of political or historical significance. However, two things make "Hail to the Chief" a better book than "Secret Lives...". One is Barbara Holland's ability as a writer. Her narrative style -- as opposed to O'Brien's short-attention-span-theater reliance on short sections, text boxes, and lots of subheads and pull quotes -- makes this a much easier book to really settle into and enjoy. Her reliance on clever comments in her footnotes suggests too much time spent reading Sellar and Yeatman, or perhaps Richard Armour, but this is something the reader can get used to. The other thing that makes this a much stronger book is illustrated by the discussion of allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by his slave Sally Hemmings. This is one of those stories that "everyone knows" is true now, and O'Brien repeats it as a flat fact. Holland, however, devotes three whole pages to laying out the whole story, culminating in the truth that DNA testing in fact showed that while *some of* Hemmings' children were sired by *a* Jefferson male, they also explicitly proved that Thomas Jefferson himself *was not* the father. Holland, in short, seems to have a commitment not only to telling a good story, but also to getting the story straight. (Oddly, however, she seems to suggest that FDR used his wheelchair and his polio as campaign assets, though my understanding always was that those facts were largely kept from the American people, and certainly not emphasized for political purposes.) Unfortunately, Barbara Holland shares one final trait with Cormac O'Brien, and that's her inability to retain her breezy objectivity and sense of comic remove when it comes to modern presidents. Nixon sends her right off the rails, her discussion of Ford can be summed up with the words "he's dumb," and, after starting by saying how much everyone loves Reagan, her summary of his term is over-the-top with mocking praise, filtered through the standard, predictable, "he was an actor playing a president" lens. The discussion of Bill Clinton is mostly about how much other people hated him, and how irrational they all were. You can imagine what she says about George W. Bush, and you'd probably be right. The final paragraph of my O'Brien review applies here too: Maybe this book is good for a laugh or two, and it's always nice to pare down the monarchical pretensions of the modern presidency (regardless of the occupant of the office or his party) a bit. But if you're looking for a real understanding of the men who have served as president and their impact, or lack of one, on history, I'd probably suggest about three dozen other titles ahead of this one.
Rating:
Summary: 1776 and all that
Review: I read this book alongside "The Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents" by Cormac O'Brien (2004). The two books obviously have a lot in common, aiming as they do to reveal the "secrets" about our Chief Executives and demonstrate that they all have, or had, their flaws, their quirks, and probably more than their fair share of general weirdness. The two books tell many of the same stories, quote many of the same excerpts from the Nixon tapes, and even make the same obvious "joke" that James Monroe should have shown more originality than to die on July 4, since John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had already done that act. And they share the same People Magazine-style focus on personality and scandal ahead of questions of political or historical significance. However, two things make "Hail to the Chief" a better book than "Secret Lives...". One is Barbara Holland's ability as a writer. Her narrative style -- as opposed to O'Brien's short-attention-span-theater reliance on short sections, text boxes, and lots of subheads and pull quotes -- makes this a much easier book to really settle into and enjoy. Her reliance on clever comments in her footnotes suggests too much time spent reading Sellar and Yeatman, or perhaps Richard Armour, but this is something the reader can get used to. The other thing that makes this a much stronger book is illustrated by the discussion of allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by his slave Sally Hemmings. This is one of those stories that "everyone knows" is true now, and O'Brien repeats it as a flat fact. Holland, however, devotes three whole pages to laying out the whole story, culminating in the truth that DNA testing in fact showed that while *some of* Hemmings' children were sired by *a* Jefferson male, they also explicitly proved that Thomas Jefferson himself *was not* the father. Holland, in short, seems to have a commitment not only to telling a good story, but also to getting the story straight. (Oddly, however, she seems to suggest that FDR used his wheelchair and his polio as campaign assets, though my understanding always was that those facts were largely kept from the American people, and certainly not emphasized for political purposes.) Unfortunately, Barbara Holland shares one final trait with Cormac O'Brien, and that's her inability to retain her breezy objectivity and sense of comic remove when it comes to modern presidents. Nixon sends her right off the rails, her discussion of Ford can be summed up with the words "he's dumb," and, after starting by saying how much everyone loves Reagan, her summary of his term is over-the-top with mocking praise, filtered through the standard, predictable, "he was an actor playing a president" lens. The discussion of Bill Clinton is mostly about how much other people hated him, and how irrational they all were. You can imagine what she says about George W. Bush, and you'd probably be right. The final paragraph of my O'Brien review applies here too: Maybe this book is good for a laugh or two, and it's always nice to pare down the monarchical pretensions of the modern presidency (regardless of the occupant of the office or his party) a bit. But if you're looking for a real understanding of the men who have served as president and their impact, or lack of one, on history, I'd probably suggest about three dozen other titles ahead of this one.
Rating:
Summary: Irreverent brevity
Review: Readers of any political stripe should enjoy Holland's breezy, brief and irreverent takes on our presidents. From George Washington's preoccupation with mules to George W's fitness regime, she pokes fun at personal quirks while touching on the major historical moments in each administration and showing that however bad we think things are now, they've been worse. Campaigns, for instance, are models of honesty and restraint in comparison to the days when Adams was not only accused of listening to his wife but described in the newspapers as "old, querulous, blind, crippled, toothless." These thumbnail sketches remind us not only of who all those middle-19th century one-term presidents were and when, but give us the firsts. New Hampshire's Franklin Pierce, for instance, was the first to have a Christmas tree in the White house and installed central heating too. Benjamin Harrison was the first to watch a professional baseball game And Andrew Jackson was the first "to decide that a President can veto a perfectly constitutional bill just because he doesn't like it, and he was like a kid with a new toy." Most of the presidents known for freeing their slaves never did, but Robert E. Lee did and "he didn't wait till he was dead to do it, either." Some presidents were more interesting for their wives - Holland gives most of Madison's space to Dolley and not just his space either. Taft's wife wanted the presidency more than he did and nudged him at conferences to stay awake while Pierce's wife was so unhappy at his election, she refused to attend the inauguration. There are scandals and wars and statesmanlike deeds, sure, but there are also pets and bratty children and fashion statements and swelled heads. A useful, funny and caustic book.
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