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The Presidents

The acclaimed account of America's leaders - a must-listen for anyone with an interest in American politics and history

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The Presidents

By: Iain Dale
Narrated by: Iain Dale
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Summary

 The ultimate guide to every President there's ever been: 46 profiles by 46 different politicians, journalists and academics compiled by leading political commentator Iain Dale

'A must read for political geeks' - Saqib Bhatti, MP

Never has there been a more pressing time to pay attention to American politics - and understand how we got to where we are today.

The Presidents features essays, written by a range of academics, historians, political journalists and serving politicians, on all 46 American Presidents who have held the office over the last 230 years - from George Washington to Donald Trump. Each contributor has been carefully chosen based on expert knowledge of their subjects and personal connections, providing analysis of their subject's successes, failures and influence. Any hagiographical writing is shunned in favour of a 'warts and all' perspective on each President and the impact they've had on US politics - past, present and future.©2021 Iain Dale American president Politicians Politics & Activism Presidents & Heads of State Latin American Socialism Democrat Franklin D Roosevelt Middle East American History Biography
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I think this is a great concept. I've also read the Prime Ministers. I see that there is now one on Ireland. I hope there are future ones on the French Presidents of the Fifth Republic and the German Chancellors since WWII. I like the fact that each President has a different author They are a bit hit and miss in that respect e.g. I thought Simon Heffer did one of the best essays in the PMs (Gladstone) but his Reagan is rather a disappointment: he is too much like a love lorn teenage girl and you don't get the rounded assessent that is needed. But that's all part of the mix I suppose. My only real criticism is that although I enjoyed Dale's podcasts, I don't think he should have narrated the books. Too often he gives the impression while half way through a sentence that he has no idea how it is going to end. He sometimes loses the sense via poor emphasis, and some of his pronounciations are very odd. A pity as overall I think this is such a good idea.

Excellent concept but needed professional narrator

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It’s a nice collection of essays on every American president. Most of them are objective, informative, and educative. Some of them seem slightly biased (eg the disappointing and super-romanticised biography of George W. Bush).
In general it’s an enjoyable audiobook (but could have done with a better narrator).

Informative!

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Iain Dale is one of the busiest broadcasters in the country and this selection of essays builds on his previous Prime Ministers selection. All written by others but edited by Dale they give a good overview and engrossing history of the offices.

However, the production on this is shameful, Dale stutters over lines that should have had another take and had an edit, he mispronounces all over the place, not just names but ‘celebrity’ for
‘Celebratory’ and also clearly needs to clear his throat at other points. It’s all rather arrogant, to take such good pieces and ‘knock them off’ without ensuring that the production is top notch. I won’t be listening to another Iain Dale
book for a while as it’s simply a waste of money or a credit to hear something done this badly.

Great book. Terrible production.

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A collection of essays on all 45 of the men who have held the office of Presidents of the United States. Each essay begins with the laying out of the essential information their date of birth, death and home state. The author of each essay gives you their view of the president they are writting about. What I like about this is that you as a listener may or may not agree.

As a listener I enjoyed the narration of Iain Dale and being able to listen to the chapter on say Franklin Pierce rather than Abraham Lincoln who personally I have read far too much about. If you enjoyed the book by the Iain Dale on the Prime Ministers you will enjoy this just as much.

Here they are...from Washington to Biden

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It is wholly understandable that the compiler of these essays should wish to narrated the whole project but on a scale 0 to 10 ( with 10 being outstanding and 0 being very poor, I give the narration 8. Too many words were "fuddled" with a need to rewind to hear the words twice or maybe three times. Hope I'm not being too harsh but I've listened to at least 200 Audible books and when comparing this book to the others I've listened to I'm afraid 8 is my rating. Despite my rating the book is very good and it has been a learning curve for me of Great proportions. Who knew that Andrew Jackson invented "ethnic cleansing"? Who what the Tammany Hall business was about ( this book led me to Wikipedia to find out). What a bunch of crooks led New York state and City? My opinion (worth nothing of course) is that Herbert Hoover was a much underrated president whose experience was sought by presidents who followed his presidency, and that it took 7 years after completion the the Hoover dam was named after him, primarily through petty jealousy. I would give this book a rating of 10 overall, it is a very good listen, and I'm tempted to get the one on british prime ministers now.

A modern View of USA presidents

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