Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard proposed to examine the 45 men who have served as president and give a no spin assessment on each. They failed utterly. The book is 400 pages. Do the math. That is less than 10 pages per president and a lot of what is discussed is the daily routine of each. What hours did they work? What did they like for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? What kind of exercise routine did they have, if any? How'd they meet their wife? These are so many thumbnail sketches that only scratch the surface of each man. There is hardly any foundation to make an honest assessment. The greatest failing is that the authors will condemn the actions of one president that they gloss over when done by another president. Harding is pummeled for his adulterous affair while FDR and JFK are merely chastised. The more recent the presidency, the more the authors' politics bleed into the assessment, more Dugard's than O'Reilly's.
The biography of each president is shallow, having to cover entirely too much in a short span. Generally, the history is correct - maybe a wrong year listed here or the wrong name there - but the assessment follows the standard ratings that you would find among a typical poll of historians.
Though he clearly starts showing some personal opinions, I give O'Reilly credit for not going overboard. That doesn't hold for his co-author. The book was completed in 2024 and Dugard still held that Biden was up to a second term. Seriously? You call that no spin? He even called 2020 the most contention election in US history while writing a book which included the 1860 election that led to Civil War!
This is a book for a novice. It would have been better if the assessments had been left out and just let the reader judge.
Not recommended.
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