Confronting the Presidents: No Spin Assessments from Washington to Biden

What does the title, Confronting the Presidents, convey about the authors’ approach? What does the title say about how the authors write about their subject matter and how they utilize primary sources?

What is the effect of including everyday details about presidents’ personal lives, such as their choice of breakfast foods or the details of their childhoods? How does this contribute to readers’ understanding of history? Discuss some examples of how personal details reflect their presidencies and broader political and social issues.

Historians debate whether history is shaped primarily by influential individuals or by broader social, cultural, economic, and environmental factors (i.e., slavery, the Great Depression, the rise of the Soviet Union, the emergence of the AIDS virus in the 1980s). Where does Confronting the Presidents stand in this debate? Discuss any examples of an individual president changing the course of history and/or a president being unable to transcend external historical factors.