Product Review

Investigating what exactly makes a US president great, Landy (political science, Boston College) and Milkis (government, U. of Virginia) choose five they believe exhibit greatness and look for what qualities they had in common. They find that Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt all sought to change and improve the nature of the regimes they inherited, and had the good luck to arrive at a time when conditions made such changes possible.