CONTENTS
Presidents of the United States
Introduction
1. Monument Man
On George Washington’s Transformation from Mortal Man to Immortal Icon
2. Well-Timed Exits
On the Postmortem Fortunes (and Misfortunes) of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, and Andrew Johnson
3. The First Patient
On James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Zachary Taylor, and the Doctors Who Keep Presidents Alive (and Occasionally Make Them Worse)
4. Farewell, Mr. President
On William Henry Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon, and How the Presidential Funeral Was Born
5. Death Trips
On the Posthumous Travels of James Polk, James Monroe, John Tyler, and Abraham Lincoln
6. His Good Name
On William McKinley, Ronald Reagan, and Calvin Coolidge, and the Large (and Small) Ways Presidents Are Remembered
7. Robots and Sphinxes
On Lyndon Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Chester Arthur, and America’s Presidential Libraries
8. Unintended Legacies
On William Taft, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, and How Presidents’ Reputations Change over Time
9. Eternal Flame
On John F. Kennedy, the City of Dallas, and What Ties Them Together Every November 22
10. The Rest of the Set
On the Many Types of Presidential Obscurity and Mediocrity, with Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, and Warren Harding
11. Family Reunion
On the Adamses, the Harrisons, and Presidential Descendants
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Illustration Credits
Index