Books published by publisher Time-Life Books

The first president born after America's independence ushers in a new era of no-holds-barred democracyThe first "professional politician" to become president, the slick and dandyish Martin Van Buren was to all appearances the opposite of his predecessor, the rugged general and Democratic champion Andrew Jackson. Van Buren, a native Dutch speaker, was America's first ethnic president as well as the first New Yorker to hold the office, at a time when Manhattan was bursting with new arrivals. A sharp and adroit political operator, he established himself as a powerhouse in New York, becoming a U.S. senator, secretary of state, and vice president under Jackson, whose election he managed. His ascendancy to the Oval Office was virtually a foregone conclusion.Once he had the reins of power, however, Van Buren found the road quite a bit rougher. His attempts to find a middle ground on the most pressing issues of his day-such as the growing regional conflict over slavery-eroded his effectiveness. But it was his inability to prevent the great banking panic of 1837, and the ensuing depression, that all but ensured his fall from grace and made him the third president to be denied a second term. His many years of outfoxing his opponents finally caught up with him.Ted Widmer, a veteran of the Clinton White House, vividly brings to life the chaos and contention that plagued Van Buren's presidency-and ultimately offered an early lesson in the power of democracy." … Widmer (Young America) paints a brief but elegant portrait of our eighth president, who, Widmer says, created the modern political party system, for which he deserves our 'grudging respect.' " - Publishers Weekly

Published by Time-Life from 1980-1984 in leather binding. The Classics of the Old West series is one of the most remarkable undertakings of Time-Life Publications. Each title and author was especially selected to represent the stories of or works about the Old West as written by those who actually lived it. Each volume is a reprint of an original Old West book including illustrations, plates, and even errors. Each book measures about 8 ½ by 6 inches, and together, cover almost 4 linear feet of shelf space. Time-Life issued these hardcover books with genuine leather binding

The real achievements of William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody as a plainsman, hunter, scout, and Indian fighter have tended to be obscured by his fame as a showman. From its opening performance in 1883, Buffalo Bill's Wild West (it was never advertised as a show or circus) enthralled audiences in America and Europe, urchins and crowned heads alike; and probably no one man did more to establish and ro-manticize the tradition of the old West of cowboy and Indian. Because he personified this tradition, Cody inspired an ocean of literature—dime novels, stories, melodramas, allegedly true accounts of his exploits—which tarnished the credibility of his legend even as it increased his renown.This Bison Books edition is the first complete reprinting of the original autobiography since it was published in 1879. It covers the years from Cody's birth in 1846 until his thirty-fourth year—the years during which he grew up on the plains, worked for Russell, Majors & Waddell, rode the Pony Express, went on fourteen expeditions against the Indians, and participated in fifteen Indian fights—the years that underpin the legend of Buffalo Bill and earned him the status of an authentic American Hero.

The president of larger-than-life ambitions and appetites whose term defined America at the close of the twentieth centuryBill Clinton: a president of contradictions. He was a Rhodes Scholar and a Yale Law School graduate, but he was also a fatherless child from rural Arkansas. He was one of the most talented politicians of his age, but he inspired enmity of such intensity that his opponents would stop at nothing to destroy him. He was the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to win two successive presidential elections, but he was also the first president since Andrew Johnson to be impeached. In this incisive biography of America’s forty-second president, Michael Tomasky examines Clinton’s eight years in office, a time often described as one of peace and prosperity, but in reality a time of social and political upheaval, as the culture wars grew ever more intense amid the rise of the Internet (and with it, online journalism and blogging); military actions in Somalia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo; standoffs at Waco and Ruby Ridge; domestic terrorism in Oklahoma City; and the rise of al-Qaeda. It was a time when Republicans took control of Congress and a land deal gone bad turned into a constitutional crisis, as lurid details of a sitting president’s sexual activities became the focus of public debate. Tomasky’s clear-eyed assessment of Clinton’s presidency offers a new perspective on what happened, what it all meant, and what aspects continue to define American politics to this day. In many ways, we are still living in the Age of Clinton.

The towering figure who remade American politics—the champion of the ordinary citizen and the scourge of entrenched privilege"It is rare that historians manage both Wilentz's deep interpretation and lively narrative." - Publishers WeeklyThe Founding Fathers espoused a republican government, but they were distrustful of the common people, having designed a constitutional system that would temper popular passions. But as the revolutionary generation passed from the scene in the 1820s, a new movement, based on the principle of broader democracy, gathered force and united behind Andrew Jackson, the charismatic general who had defeated the British at New Orleans and who embodied the hopes of ordinary Americans. Raising his voice against the artificial inequalities fostered by birth, station, monied power, and political privilege, Jackson brought American politics into a new age.Sean Wilentz, one of America's leading historians of the nineteenth century, recounts the fiery career of this larger-than-life figure, a man whose high ideals were matched in equal measure by his failures and moral blind spots, a man who is remembered for the accomplishments of his eight years in office and for the bitter enemies he made. It was in Jackson's time that the great conflicts of American politics—urban versus rural, federal versus state, free versus slave—crystallized, and Jackson was not shy about taking a vigorous stand. It was under Jackson that modern American politics began, and his legacy continues to inform our debates to the present day.

A leader of the Reconstruction era, whose contested election eerily parallels the election debacle of 2000 The disputed election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, in which Congress set up a special electoral commission, handing the disputed electoral votes to Hayes, brings recent events into sharp focus. Historian Hans L. Trefousse explores Hayes's new relevance and reconsiders what many have seen as the pitfalls of his presidency. While Hayes did officially terminate the Reconstruction, Trefousse points out that this process was already well under way by the start of his term and there was little he could do to stop it. A great intellectual and one of our best-educated presidents, Hayes did much more in the way of healing the nation and elevating the presidency.