Also of interest ... in presidents of old

The Fiery Trial

by Eric Foner

(Norton, $30)

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Eric Foner has somehow managed to “cast new light” on Abraham Lincoln’s often-contradictory attitudes toward slavery, said David Reynolds in The New York Times. The venerable historian allows here that Lincoln “had a racist streak” and once even seemed to blame black slaves for provoking the Civil War. But Foner also shows that for all the “blots” on Lincoln’s record, the Great Emancipator never compromised his core belief that slavery was unjust. “So dexterously did he navigate the political waters” that he still deserves full credit for achieving abolition.

American Caesars

by Nigel Hamilton

(Yale, $35)

Comparing 12 recent U.S. presidents to the leaders of ancient Rome could have been a fruitful conceit, said Glenn C. Altschuler in The Boston Globe. But Nigel Hamilton’s decision to do so while imitating Suetonius’ famously scurrilous biographies of the Caesars “does not engender confidence in his judgment.” His portraits of the presidents from FDR to Bush II “range from the conventional to the sensational,” and all too often tell us little about the growth of the “imperial” presidency.

Poisoning the Press

by Mark Feldstein

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30)

Mark Feldstein’s new book captures a special hatred in Richard Nixon’s life, said Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post. Nixon despised most reporters, but he had an “utter obsession” with syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, who uncovered countless “dark secrets” of Nixon’s administration, sometimes by bribing sources. Feldstein’s stunning account of the two men’s rivalry details how the CIA spied on Anderson and how presidential aides once even plotted his murder. The antipathy was fierce, and it proved to be “a harbinger of the escalating frictions between presidents and the press.”

White House Diary

by Jimmy Carter

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $32)

Even in an edited form, Jimmy Carter’s White House journals offer “a uniquely unfiltered look” at the modern presidency, said Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times. Carter has added commentary in which he indulges in petty score settling, but what’s most striking is how often his agenda was crowded out by “unforeseen events,” such as the Iranian hostage crisis. It’s telling that “there’s little in this diary about stagflation or the economy.” Those issues, too, cost him his job.