1840s: Polk Presidency

Good to read as a sequel to the Jackson book in the Times Presidents series. (Easy to skip Van Buren as he is well covered in both of these.) The Jackson bio did a great job analyzing the contradictions in his presidency from a contemporary perspective. The Polk is more of a straight-up history, but is actually a fun page-turner. At least for people who make history reading projects and document them.

Easy 4/5 stars

(Read January 2008)