102 Quotes by H. W. Brands

In the academic world, biographies of these great figures of the past fell out of favor in the 1960s, when there was a turn toward social history, which meant the history of the voiceless and faceless. But the public at large never embraced the idea that these dead white guys should be abandoned.

When you're actually president, the spin matters a lot less.

For Andrew Jackson, politics was very personal. He hated not just the federal debt. He hated debt at all.

In the early days of the republic, the secretary of state was the heir apparent to the president. Presidents could easily hand-pick their party's next candidate. The party caucuses formally selected the candidates, but presidents guided the process.

Booker Washington was essentially the head Republican boss in the South. He was a power broker.

Booker Washington was branded an accommodationist by many of the people who criticized him.

Presidents are evaluated not by what they did by the stroke of their own pen; it's what they persuade Congress to do.

Presidents have to decide what their popularity is for. Lyndon Johnson probably understood best that political popularity is a wasting asset. You had to use it when you had it.

I had this grand plan for writing the history of the United States in six volumes. This was in the mid-1990s; I was fairly young and very ambitious. I pitched it to a publisher, who just laughed at me.