Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents

by Robert Strauss

Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Winner in Biography

“The Funniest. Presidential. Biographer. Ever.” —Kai Bird, Pulitzer-prize winning historian

Now in paperback, W.P.E. flips the great presidential biography on its head, offering an enlightening—and highly entertaining!—account of poor James Buchanan’s presidency. This book proves once and for all that, well, few leaders could have done worse. But author Robert Strauss also explores with insight and humor the entire notion of ranking our presidents. He guides us through the POTUS rating game played by historians and others, the world of presidential history buffs, presidential sites, the presidency itself, and how and why the White House can often take the best measures out of even the most dedicated men.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Presidents, Audiobook, American History, Politics

280 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2016

About the author

Robert Strauss has been a reporter for Sports Illustrated, a feature writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, a news and sports producer for KYW-TV in Philadelphia and a TV critic for the Asbury Park Press. Now a freelance writer, his byline has appeared on more than 1000 stories in the New York Times, and in many other publications like the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Star-Ledger, the Philadelphia newspapers, Fortune, Sports Illustrated and even Today's Machining World. He is an adjunct instructor of writing at the University of Pennsylvania and a contributing
editor at New Jersey Monthly.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

"Though [James Buchanan] had some positives, they were primarily social and short lived. He was not an evil man personally and had a partying spirit when it came time for that, but even there, he could not bring himself to be even a mediocre administrator. In short, as [author] Robert Merry concludes in his section on the candidates for worst U.S. president: 'Buchanan's place in history, like Warren Harding's, seems well established. The historians' various surveys have him vying for second from the bottom. That would seem to be a notch too high." -- on page 174

The 15th U.S. commander-in-chief James Buchanan (serving his term 1857-1861) is remembered, if at all, chiefly for a few reasons: usually that he was the only bachelor to occupy that top office AND the only POTUS (thus far) to carry / be represented by his birthplace of Pennsylvania. The other notorious point is that he routinely ranks among the worst of America's presidents, usually sharing that column with our other one-term wonders like Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and Warren Harding. Strauss' engaging and spirited bio on 'Old Buck' (Buchanan's self-appointed sobriquet) was both amusing and informative, focusing on the man who bungled the opportunity of a lifetime AND had the misfortune of occupying the White House before our arguably greatest or most-revered president, Abraham Lincoln, It is curious that, on paper, Buchanan undoubtedly had the necessary experience - such as multiple terms as a state representative, a senator, ambassador to both Russia and Great Britain, and a Secretary of State posting - to likely be, at the time, the most qualified politico to attain the presidency. Yet it did not go well for him - or, to be even more blunt, he did not do much right in his four years - and often he is relegated to the sorry dustbin of American history. Worst. President. Ever. is a brisk and humanizing portrait of Buchanan that, while not letting him completely off the hook for his bad decisions or non-actions as POTUS in the chaotic pre-Civil War days, may also serve as the ultimate governmental example of the 'Peter Principle' concept.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Edit May 2020: You've got to feel for Robert Strauss. When he wrote this he had no idea how absolutely silly this title would be by the time the book came out (November 2016 - how ironic). Poor guy. Who knew?
*** *** ***
Was James Buchanan the worst president ever? (I'm sorry – I refuse to copy the title's punctuation.) Maybe he was. Maybe not. I'm not sure this author is persuasive enough to make me agree with him.

Part of it is that he takes large chunks of a not-very-long book into discussion of topics that have nothing whatever to do with Buchanan or his fitness, such as a long chunk about a quarter of the way in about how he became interested in presidents in general and Buchanan in particular. Because Strauss loved sports statistics, you see, his father gave him a book about presidential trivia. Wait, what - ? (Also, if I were his daughter Sylvia, I am not sure I'd speak to him for quite a while after reading this. Sylvia does not come off as a very appealing person. Who knows – maybe Strauss used the same gimmick as William Goldman did in The Princess Bride and the daughter was fictional.) The beginning of the presidency in question doesn't come until the sixty percent mark; the first 60% of the book is spent on the history of slavery and the country and the previous fourteen presidents. Oh, and the first sixty-odd years of Buchanan's life. It seems to be a symptom of the fact that there just isn't that much info about the man; in order to flesh out an entire book it had to cover him from birth, however irrelevant his childhood might be to how good or bad his presidency was.) There's a lot of what really feels like padding; without much effort, this book could have been trimmed of 100 pages. Or cut in half.

Also padding-like is the relentless repetition. Treating chronology with blithe disregard, the author loops back around and around to the Dred Scott Decision, or the death of Ann Coleman (the beloved of the young Buchanan), or the death of Pierce's son, or that revenue cutter named after Harriet Lane, or Harper's Ferry…

Another problem I had with the book is that he leans, very heavily, on the few previous biographers there are out there, quoting from them liberally. It's to be expected, I suppose, given how little there is about Buchanan out there, but it happens often enough that it begins to feel like simple regurgitation. It's pretty funny when he disparages one biographer's ability to "present an engaging story".

And really, I don't think the popularity of a president's first name is exactly relevant when trying to determine the best or worst. It's not like "Abraham" has been one of the top hundred baby names over the past hundred years (I checked).

The writing … This might sound hypocritical, given that I have a decent vocabulary and like to use it when I perhaps don't really need to, but I think I know when to stop. I truly, sincerely hope I've never been guilty of a pompous sentence like "My contrarian antennae had been raised to their acme." Things like "Litchfield, a town nearby Yale" are not only awkward but inaccurate; New Haven is over an hour from Litchfield. The Masons are referred to as "a somewhat secretive organization", which is like saying Pulp Fiction is somewhat profane. I've never understood "horse riders". And it seemed like a whole lot of sentences featured a minimum of three or four commas. (I'm sorry, I have to use one more quote, which is both a great example of this and also of yet another thing that was reiterated over and over: "When it became clear, though, that eventually, with all the westward expansion, the South would turn from an equal section to a minority one, abolitionists, who had just been a nuisance, started really bothering Southerners." Seven commas.) Sometimes there are dashes. I'm not supposed to use quotes from the advance copy, so I'll stop there, but I've gotten in the habit of putting one note on particularly odd or off passages when I highlight them on the Kindle: "wut?" There were a lot of "wuts" in this book.

One more thing that left me a bit gobsmacked was a quote from a former university history professor that "They certainly didn’t have the word ‘gay’ back then" … Um. They kinda did. It had a different primary definition "back then". The author ponders how, although there is conjecture that Buchanan was homosexual, he was never rumored in his own time to be dating another man. How surprising.

He compares Thomas Hart Benton's daughter to Kris Kardashian. I … *sigh*

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Buchanan (1791-1868) the 15th President was a Pennsylvanian and a Southern Democrat. According to author, Robert Strauss, he was the worst president ever. Strauss states he meddled in the Supreme Court decision in the matter of a runaway slave Dred Scott. Strauss states Buchanan managed to trash almost everything he touched most of all setting the Civil War into motion.

Strauss states Buchanan was arrogant, misaligned, indecisive, misread current events and was a self-styled strict constructionist. Apparently, he also refused to listen to or seek good counsel. Strauss states his two closes rivals for the worst president are Warren G. Harding and Franklin Pierce.

The writing is average but the book is well researched. The book is written in an entertaining and humorous fashion. This is not a scholarly academic book. The author has overstated and simplified situations to make his point. The factors leading to the Civil War were years in the making and far more complex than indicated by the author. But the book was fun to read and highlighted a lesser known president.

Tom Perkins did a good job narrating the book. Perkins is an award-winning audiobook narrator.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I somewhat reluctantly give this two stars, because the author seems like a genuinely nice guy - I admire his enthusiasm for the presidency and his ambition in writing a book about it. But I just have to say, in the nicest possible way, that I'm not sure why this book exists. It is essentially a combination of Jean Baker's short biography James Buchanan, and Robert Merry's Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians, about the "presidential rating game", both of which are major sources for Strauss' book. If you read each of those better, more thorough and thoughtful takes on their respective subjects, you really don't need to read this.

Which is a shame, because I really wanted to like this book. After reading more than a half dozen serious, academic studies on James Buchanan, I was looking forward to something lighter and more irreverent. The title alone seems a good indicator that this is going to be an entertaining read, and Strauss gets off a few good pithy one-liners in his introduction, calling Buchanan “the first plodding-to-the-top president” who “seemed to intuitively pick the wrong tine of every fork in the road.”

But what follows is pretty much a straightforward, concise birth-to-death biography of Buchanan - slightly more chatty and casual than, but not altogether different from, Baker’s concise birth-to-death biography of Buchanan published as part of the American Presidents series. The difference is that each of Strauss’ chapters end with meandering non sequitur ruminations about everything from the notion of ranking presidents, to various personal stories about Strauss’ own life, family, and his lifelong interest in presidents.

I was kind of expecting the whole book would be made up of these meandering ruminations, which would not necessarily have been a bad thing - a memoir of a presidential enthusiast indulging his specific interest in our worst president could have been a fun read. Instead, Strauss awkwardly tries to tack this perspective onto a legitimate biography, and ends up not really succeeding at either.

He’s a little too dismissive of previous Buchanan biographers like Baker and Philip Klein, which is ironic considering how much he relies on and refers to their work in writing his own. He waves away Klein as overly sympathetic (and annoyingly keeps referring to him as Buchanan's "apologist") and largely dismisses Baker’s work as just a placeholder in its series - and then he goes on to use them as his sources almost exclusively.

If the point of the book is to demonstrate why Buchanan is the “Worst. President. Ever.” (which Strauss insists on styling that way throughout the book), then the first two-thirds of the book is somewhat superfluous, as it is all about Buchanan’s early life and career and has nothing at all to do with his presidency. By the time the book does get to Buchanan’s presidency, Strauss recounts a familiar litany of Buchanan’s failings and goes on to muse about the notion of ranking our presidents, for which he largely relies on Merry’s book about that very subject. In a long section reflecting on other poor presidents, he eventually crowns Buchanan the “Worst. President. Ever.” mostly by process of elimination, after describing the more admirable attributes of each other contender for the title.

In the end, the book is too casual and irreverent to be a legitimate presidential biography, while simultaneously too serious to be a light, fun read. Strauss tries, by throwing in modern references to everything from TMZ to the Kardashians, but he also often falls into the trap of feature-journalist-as-dilettantish-historian, by using direct quotes from interviewees, making the book feel more like a long-form newspaper or magazine article.

If this is the only book you read about James Buchanan, you’ll come away with a pretty good sense of why he was among our worst presidents (and you can decide for yourself whether Strauss’ conclusion still holds, or whether Buchanan has been superseded as “Worst. President. Ever.” since this book’s 2016 publication.) Or you can just read Baker and Merry’s books and there won’t really be much need to read this one. I still admire Strauss’ enthusiasm for the presidency and his ambition in writing a book about it. I just wish he had a more unique take to offer.

[Nancy Breinholt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am hoping that reading a bunch of biographies of the worst presidents will make me feel better about the president-elect. This one did not work. I'm still horrified.

[Killian · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What bet did you lose?"

This is the question Strauss was asked by a librarian during the course of his research into President James Buchanan's life. When Strauss later asked how often anyone asked to look at these Buchanan papers? The answer was "Not very". Which should give you an indication of how little regard Buchanan is given among the pantheon of former POTUS's.

Seriously, do you even know the time period when the guy was president?

Without looking it up on Wikipedia?

Yeah, me neither before this book. So I was extremely interested when I saw it on Netgalley, especially when I realized he was preceded by my boy, Franklin Pierce. This book is very well written, and clearly very well researched. The author talks about his love of presidential history, and it comes through in the details added throughout. This isn't just a biography, as the title suggests. It's also about the "POTUS Rating Game", and how historians have come to the general conclusion that James Buchanan may very well be the Worst. President. Ever. Strauss goes into quite a bit of detail on other presidents to explain why this is, and I really enjoyed reading that synopsis.

I will say that the writing meanders at places. Generally the chapters begin with the history of Buchanan and at some point they shift over into the authors experiences and opinions, or his thoughts on the POTUS ratings, etc. This resulted in several bits of repeated information that made me double take to make sure I hadn't accidentally flipped back a few pages. It was just a little annoying to me personally. I would have preferred to read all of the history together, then read all of the authors asides together.

I think it's obvious by now, but I really REALLY liked this book. I would highly recommend it to everyone, especially those who love US Presidential history. It was so interesting to read a POTUS biography that wasn't trying to paint its subject in glowing terms, but being very honest about their missteps and foibles.

I'll leave you with this list that displays a slice of the terribad things that happened during Buchanan's presidency, not all of which were his fault.

- The Dred Scott SCOTUS decision (The decision was handed down on the second day he was in office, and he was involved in this decision and thought it would halt the hostilities. I. Can't. Even.)
- Bleeding Kansas (Resulting from the Kansas-Nebraska act which was actually Pierce's baby, but the violence happened on Buchanan's watch)
- The Panic of 1957 (A recession. The year he came into office, no less)
- The Mormon Wars (aka the Utah War, but either way this was a colossal blunder of his)
- Fort Sumpter (I think we all know about this one)
- South Carolina Secession (Which happened just as Buchanan was leaving office and Lincoln was coming in.)

Copy courtesy of Rowman & Littlefield/Lyons Press, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently read Great Presidents, one of The Great Courses by Allan J. Lichtman, so I thought a contrast would be good when it caught my eye. It was, although I found the presidential rating game rather arbitrary. Strauss makes a case for Polk being one of the worst saying he didn't do much, it was others who accomplished so much during his single term, yet Lichtman lists him as one of his 8 greats. If a president can be blamed for what happens on his watch, he should also reap the benefits, so I think Lichtman had the better side of the argument for Polk.

James Buchanan (1791-1868) the 15th President served from 1856 - 1860 & certainly is in the running for the worst & may well have been. He waffled as the South left the Union & managed to make so many incredibly bad decisions. Behind the scenes, he pushed for the horrible decision in Dred Scott. Even though he was from PA, he was a Southern Democrat. Strauss shows all of this well.

He covered the reasons for the South leaving the Union, states rights over the slavery issue, well, too. He also mentioned the low literacy & slave holding rates among Southerners. Both were low & literacy was much lower in the South than the North. Only about 1 in 5 Southerners owned a slave, less in many of the border states. He did a serviceable job explaining how most Northerners at the time who were for abolishing slavery didn't think Blacks were the equal of Whites in intelligence - not fully human - & mentioned the fears of Blacks taking labor jobs especially from recent immigrants like Germans & Irish who were having issues of their own.

Unfortunately, he didn't pull it all together & really emphasize the economics of the southern leaders, those who had the most invested in slavery, the ones who led their illiterate people into a hopeless war. He did point out how slavery was becoming less lucrative economically & the South was losing their preeminent position in politics, but he never came right out & showed that well.

I really liked the way he showed how so many presidents prior to & including Buchanan were not the best, but the compromise. By the end of the book when Buchanan is turning over the presidency to Lincoln, I really felt sorry for Lincoln & see why he may well be the greatest. He inherited a terrible mess.

Strauss says how instructive Buchanan could be to incoming presidents & I agree. I've read about the greats & certainly they're more fun, but Buchanan is a fine example of what a politician should avoid doing. Well narrated & interesting. Definitely recommended.

[Dave Milbrandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a complimentary copy of Worst. President. Ever. from Rowman & Littlefield in an exchange for an honest evaluation of its merits. And, toward that end, I can say I loved this book. A bit of a presidential history nut myself (McCullough and Brands are my favorite writers in the genre), I must admit I’ve fallen in love with the narrative style of Robert Strauss. While people often talk about a writer’s conversational style, this book actually reads like you two are spending an afternoon at a coffee house or a local watering hole chatting about the triumphs and (mostly) travails of James Buchanan. There is definitely a healthy dose of humor with the serious reflection, and his explanation about how challenging it was to gather information on Buchanan and what those who possessed these artifacts thought about him is fascinating as well. When I go to D.C. next time, I’ll definitely want to see the Buchanan statue. I doubt it will be on the regular tour.

Since Strauss is dealing with one of the lesser presidents who has been dead for decades, he is under no obligation to gild the lily, as it were. Therefore, his sober analysis gives us insight into the mistakes presidents make and how that impacts their legacy and the nation. While it is easy to market a glowing tribute or a scathing critique, if more presidential biographies were written like Strauss’ piece on Buchanan, I think we would be much better served.

[Lilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this free copy for exchange of an honest review

I am not an American but I am very much interested in American history so this book compartmentalized and helped me understand a lot about James Buchanan. It's what I needed in order to comprehend James Buchanan presence as a US President in a short and clear way.
I hope more books like that will be published. As I am not someone who can judge it's content I am going to limit myself in saying that it has a great, interesting writing style, it is thorough and it's condensed enough for a good read.

[Stan Prager · Rating 1 out of 5]

Review of: Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents, by Robert Strauss
by Stan Prager (3-8-17)

Worst. Biography. Ever.
Perhaps that seems overly harsh, but Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents, by Robert Strauss, is not only more poorly constructed than its awkwardly convoluted title, but it features some of the most abysmal writing that I have come across in years. I really hate to write bad reviews, but this is truly a very bad book, on so many levels. Even poor James Buchanan, worst president or not, deserves better than this.
Historians have been rating former presidents for some time. The top three are fairly consistent, with Washington and Lincoln typically jockeying for first place and FDR coming in third. The bottom three tends to vary from one list to another, but Buchanan is almost invariably ranked dead last, with sometimes strong competition from Warren G. Harding, Andrew Johnson, and more recently, George W. Bush. Buchanan, known in the parlance of the time as a “doughface” for his Southern sympathies, was an otherwise unexceptional career politician who waited his turn for the White House but had the bad fortune to win election as the country was coming apart over slavery. Unfortunately, he seemed to lack both the vision and the conviction to act constructively to mitigate the looming crisis, instead putting the weight of his office on the wrong side of explosive issues such as the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, as well as the effort by pro-slavery partisans to foist the illegitimate Lecompton Constitution upon Kansas territory, where a bloody prequel to the Civil War was raging. A staunch Unionist but also a strict Constitutional constructionist, Buchanan seemed paralyzed by inaction as secession unfolded in the months between the election and inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, which then occurred in March rather than January. It was Buchanan’s failure to act during that long interregnum that consigns him to last place by most historians who compile such rankings.
Strauss’ book was released during the tumultuous 2016 election season, which made it seem all the more relevant. Buchanan, not a popular subject, has not had many biographers. While I know much about his tenure from other works on the antebellum period, I had never read his biography. But I have read more than two dozen biographies of American presidents, written for both scholarly and popular audiences. Some were masterful, some ponderous, some insightful, and still others unremarkable. I have read Flexner, Ellis, Meacham, McCullough, Donald, Remini, Dallek, Reeves, Caro and many more. The best products of this genre not only chronicle the life of its subject but adroitly explore the era when he walked the earth, revealing the complexity and nuance of people and events that a careful historian brings to a studied analysis. Unfortunately, all of that is conspicuous in its absence in Worst. President. Ever. This is especially regrettable because a quality, balanced treatment of Buchanan would be a welcome addition to the historiography.
Instead, the narrative is choppy and superficial, and offers almost no thoughtful analysis. Rife with clichés and clumsy metaphors, the author’s voice utterly lacks authority. The entire book is delivered in an idiomatic, conversational tone, as if it was related by a random person sitting on the barstool next to you. While the style, if we can call it that, is suitable to a tavern milieu, it has absolutely no place in a serious work of history. And the writing is bad. Really bad. More than once I found myself flipping to the back flap of the dustjacket to confirm the author’s résumé, which apparently includes reporting for the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated—and teaching a non-fiction writing class at the University of Pennsylvania! I rarely include multiple excerpts from a book in reviews, but I am going to make an exception here, for unless you read such excerpts you may judge me harshly for my harsh judgments! So here we go:
On the economic panic of 1857: "By midsummer no one could take a ride on the Reading, as Uncle Pennybags does in the Monopoly game, since it had shut down…" [p160]
Regarding Andrew Jackson’s accession to the presidency: "He was a general and loved being in charge. Further, he was miffed about how the previous election had come out, with Adams and Clay back-door dealing, which he presumed meant they thought of him not smart enough to be the big boss." [p75]
On the nominating process for the election of 1852: "With Polk bowing out … Buchanan again figured he was deserving of the nomination. His scheme was the usual … say little controversial, and then proclaim: 'Aw, shucks, well, OK…'" [p110]
Strauss frequently makes broad, simplistic statements about critical historical events that simply made me wince. As in:
On the great issue of slavery: "Most Northerners let the issue ride. They might've been against slavery personally, but like a tic a neighbor might have that they shrugged their shoulders about, they tolerated slavery for the places where it already existed . . . [p115] And: "Still, much like the Southeastern Conference against the Big Ten in football today, whatever helps the 'team' got strong support from all concerned … So slavery became the chicken, not just the egg." [p133]
Clichés abound, and there are many more wild and weird analogies between Buchanan’s time and ours, as well, such as:
On Buchanan’s relationship with James K. Polk: "The office of secretary of state was different then than in the twentieth century and beyond. There was no jetting off to seventy-five countries a year and meeting with statesmen every week." [p107]
On Jesse Benton Fremont, wife of John C. Fremont: "Like Kris Kardashian, whose fame started when she began to burnish the reputation of her Olympian husband Bruce Jenner … Jesse Benton, knowing the way of politics from her father, saw that kind of legend in her husband … She was unafraid of what might seem like a dicey past." [p127] And on a campaign song that pays tribute to her: "It does not seem likely that calling, say, Michelle Obama or Laura Bush —or even Sarah Palin—'the flower of the land' would've made it in the feminist twenty-first century, but the song does show what a celebrity Jesse Fremont had become…" [p147]
Sadly, there is much, much more of these painful passages, interspersed with occasional odd tangents about the author’s various field trips and what sparked his interest in history. Surprisingly, despite the book’s subtitle, there is precious little analysis of what actually constitutes bad ratings for presidents and why Buchanan is at the bottom, although there are hints throughout, as in a discussion of the Dred Scott case that asserts: "… James Buchanan would find his way to intercede in it—and on that intercession, get quickly as he could on the road to becoming the Worst. President. Ever." [p149] There is finally a brief chapter that runs down the list of troubled presidencies and makes a poor attempt at appropriate evaluation, which can only be properly summarized by still another excerpt:
“Andrew Johnson was no prize as a president, but he did keep the country from buckling after the Civil War… Johnson was impeached because of his policies … and survived being shown the door by just one Senate vote." [p167] And "…though he really blew it with Kansas-Nebraska, Pierce at least advocated that the Union was paramount … Pierce was no prize but he kept the United States intact …" Only then does Strauss pass judgment: "Buchanan, then, takes that prize. Though he had some positives, they were primarily social and short-lived. He was not an evil man personally and had a partying spirit when it came time for that, but even there, he could not bring himself to be even a mediocre administrator." [p174]
I am sure that this review will find critics among those who appreciate Strauss’ chaotic, bantering style, but I am even more certain that few who would defend this work are serious students of American history. Was Buchanan really the worst president ever? Do not look to this book to find out.



The latest review: "Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan ..." by Robert Strauss is live on the Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2017/03/08/review-...

[Grumpus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The grumpus23 (23-word commentary)
Not thorough, but a still enjoyable recap of the little-documented president James Buchanan and his ineptitude leading the nation toward the Civil War.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

With its title, cover and premise, I couldn't not pick up this book. Strauss suggests that there are plenty of books written about the guys on Rushmore, but not one writes about the least great Presidents. He also suggest we can learn from that.

Indeed, he says there have only four attempts at a Buchanan biography, and the most recent was part of a complete Presidential set, so he had to be written about.

As much as the book talks about Buchanan, it also discusses how we rate Presidents, and who is truly worst- with nods to Harding, Pierce, Hoover, Nixon, Carter, Dubya and all the others.

Buchanan does have a pretty solid resume in this regard. He had a career of being indecisive- but when he made decisions as President he seemed to make the wrong ones. This included possibly influencing the Dred Scott Decision, making the financial Panic of 1857 even worse, being ineffectual against John Brown and in "Bleeding Kansas" and starting pointless international incidents with Paraguay (!) and Canada (I had completely forgot about the Pig War, which was an I Can Read book by Betty Baker which was available in my grade school.)as well as against the Mormons in Utah.

There is a bit of a nod to 2016 with Buchanan being one of the most President-ready candidates. He had been Secretary of State, a Congressman, an ambassador to Russia and Britain. He had been a surefire candidate for at least three election cycles, though his bumblings made it that he did not get to run as the young firebrand, but instead as a much elder statesman.

Strauss makes an interesting point about the string of Presidents from Jackson to Lincoln, which contains some of our lowest points. Yet, also an era that gave us some of our greatest minds or at least were leaders of men- Henry Clay, John C Calhoun, Daniel Webster, William Seward, Thomas Hart Benson, Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis.

It's an interesting point that he makes that people like Clay didn't win (though Clay, Calhoun and Webster all ran), likely because they took bold stands, and spent their careers making bold stands in Congress.

Whereas the country nominated and elected those that might be considered moderate. Buchanan was obsessed with the Presidency from the start. He often took no stand or both stands on an issue. He grew up in a heavy Federalist district and became a Democrat when the Federalists folded.

Andrew Jackson hated his ambition and sent him to Russia, where Buchanan had a major deal signed with the Czar. As a cabinet member and ambassador, he did not have his stances tied to votes, and won the nomination by being a bit of a waffler.

Buchanan's main reason for success was he could throw great parties. The book does talk about the rumor Buchanan was gay, but the author does not seem to find much evidence there.

The main case against Buchanan was that he did not believe the country should stop succession, or any case did little to stop it. Also, the country was probably going down a path where conflict might be inevitable, but Buchanan instead of taking marked steps like the Compromise of 1850, seemed to think the whole slavery issue would go away. Franklin Pierce was guilty of many of the same things Buchanan was, but he was in favor of keeping the union above all else.

This book was right down my alley. It did get repetitive, and at times was a bit clunky. The book tries to do two things- rank the worst Presidents (or advise against doing that), and Strauss also really wants to write a respectable Buchanan biography. He tries to make it a fun read as evidenced by the title, but he has done his research on Buchanan and wants to make sure he is presenting that as well.

It's hard not to agree with the conclusion. Buchanan was one of the most qualified candidates for the job, but he also was fed by ambition and took stands for personal gain instead of principle. There were some bad Presidents, but his refusal to do much of anything about succession, puts him on top.

[James (JD) Dittes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strauss has written a very good book about a very, very bad president--James Buchanan.

Buchanan's presidency is (for good reasons) largely forgotten. This is, in part, because he was incompetent, but he also preceded the Greatest. President. Ever, whose vision for the United States fulfilled the destiny set out in the Declaration of Independence and affirmed in that president's own "Gettysburg Address."

Lincoln-centered readers of American history fail to recognize that South Carolina--then Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas--seceded from the United States in the five months between Lincoln's election and the beginning of his term. In other words, Buchanan had his hand on the tiller of the ship of state during these crucial months when it foundered! His convoluted reason for doing nothing--that states did not have the right to secede but the president was constitutionally powerless to stop them--is well explained by Strauss.

Other forgotten missteps of the Buchanan presidency are also explained--an aborted Pig War with Britain over a dinky island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, efforts to purchase Cuba to add to the slave states, and a panic in 1857 do Buchanan few favors. Ultimately the bachelor president's lasting contribution to Washington was the energy of his "first lady," his niece, Harriet Lane, who was a player in the DC and Baltimore social scene for the rest of the century.

Strauss writes in an engaging manner. A native Pennsylvanian, he slips in personal anecdotes about ties between the Keystone State and the characters in his book (we learn, for example, that William Henry Harrison is the only president to have attended UPenn, even if it was for a few weeks of medical school). Strauss's style makes his discussion of Buchanan's accomplishments, political enemies (Andrew Jackson, Stephen Douglas) and prevarications very readable.

Strauss also discusses other contenders for Worst. President. Ever, making a case that Harding, Pierce, Hoover and Bush were nowhere near the bottom established by Buchanan. He also explores rumors about the homosexuality of the 15th President, but he doesn't seem to put much stock in them.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me preview this book. It deserves a broad audience. It brings to life a key period in American history--the interregnum between Jackson and Lincoln--that many history books leave out.

[Josh O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating is probably slightly higher than deserved because the last three presidential biographies were so bleh.
That being said, I loved this book! It’s great as a biography and it’s also a great overview and analysis of the presidential rating game. I also like how it partially fills in the blank spaces in presidential biography for some of the presidents before Buchanan as well, even if it is sort of used as padding to fill in the book.
We need a book like this for Pierce and Fillmore at least. There’s a clear vacuum of good biographies covering presidents between Jackson and Lincoln.
Bravo Strauss! Thank you for your eclectic obsession with presidents. It has served me, at least, well.

[Jim Zubricky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty interesting - and very readable - history on the 15th President of the US. It was a fairy quick read; the only drawback was that Chapter 1 really set the tone for the entire book, so other chapters are really supporting the providing details on things mentioned in chapter 1 ... which totally makes sense as the author writes for the New York Times.

I do wonder if or how the 45th President would fare on this list.

[Christie Bane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a delightful departure from the long stretch of dull, shallow presidential biographies I've been reading. I mean, look at the title, how could it not be a great book!

James Buchanan is considered the worst president ever by almost everyone that rates presidents. There are lots of reasons why. He was a lifelong politician, but always a mediocre one. To be elected in his time, you almost had to be mediocre, because anyone with strong opinions was defeated. He waffled on everything, contradicted himself regularly, and did not like to commit to anything. He did more to contribute to the start of the Civil War than any other president (including backing the terrible Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, allowing South Carolina to secede, and supporting the Kansas-Nebraska Act) and did absolutely nothing to stop it. Even in his retirement, he refused to accept any blame for the Civil War, instead choosing to blame it on Northern abolitionist radicals who inflamed the South and forced them to secede. His biggest failing to me seems to be the fact that he could look at the state of the Union and think that it would somehow work itself out. (Like, seriously... how?)

This book was better than most because it was not only about Buchanan; it also provided a thorough discussion of how presidents are rated and why we find it so irresistible to rate them. What makes Buchanan so much worse than the other bad presidents? This author can tell you.

Side note: Buchanan was the only president who never married, and although some "historians" have tried to point to indications that he may have been gay, that evidence is pretty sketchy in my book. It's way easier to believe that Eleanor Roosevelt had a girlfriend than that James Buchanan had a boyfriend.

[Paul Gibson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst. Book. Ever.
I’ve read many of the most recent history books over the past few years. They have been a great way to read history as an adult. This book isn’t one of them. I didn’t think it was humorous; I didn’t find it well written or enlightening. And although some of my reviews say as much about me as they do the book, this book itself says more about the author than the the subject. And since I can’t say anything good about this book, I’ll not say anymore.

[Carin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in the wake of the election. It hopefully is getting a bit of a boost from that. After all, reading about the worst president ever (up until now), is a good way to try to look and see what might lie ahead.

Buchanan was the first president who wasn't either a Founding Father or a war hero. He was rather, a professional politician (a lawyer when he was between political gigs) and he did have spectacularly bad timing. Few people would have been able to do much with the mess of those years. However, considering that Lincoln did so spectacularly well with the only years that were worse, shows it certainly could be done. The worst thing that he did, over and over again, was nothing. He wouldn't make decisions. He wouldn't make a tough call. He'd try to wait out a tricky situation. But you can't do that when states are threatening to secede from the union. That's not the time to sit on your hands and hope time heals all wounds.

Interestingly he was also at the time our oldest president, and the only one a bachelor (his niece happily stepped in to perform all the First Lady tasks) and possibly also our first gay president, although we'll never really know the truth there. Being back-to-back with Lincoln does nothing to burnish his reputation, although the reverse is also true as his predecessor is also one of the 5 worst so he could have looked good in comparison. What I found the most intriguing was that at this time, in the early to mid 1800s, We had a real string of forgettable and inconsequential presidents, and yet we had a lot of non-president statesmen who were impressive and spectacular (like Henry Clay and James Seward.) So why were we electing these yahoos? The nominating system worked less well then and of course our bizarre electoral college has never helped. More than once in these years, the candidates running were hoping no one would get a plurality of votes and the Congress would have to decide the president. That strikes one as an odd tactic in today's world.

Interspersed through this biography, Strauss gives us a rundown of the other presidents vying for the sobriquet of Worst. The good thing (so far) is that all of our bad presidents have been impressively ineffectual and they just don't do anything. It's possible that in four years we'll not only revise the list, but that we'll finally have someone who stands out as actually accomplishing negative things, but we can always hope for another Know Nothing campaign and a Do-Nothing Congress to mitigate.

I also realized upon reading this that I have only read one other straightforward presidential biography (not including Lincoln's Melancholy which is pretty narrowly-focused) so I ought to probably read another one. It's sad that of the only two I've read, one was of the worst president. (The other was John Adams by David McCullough so that compensates in a lot of ways.)

Regardless of whether you fear the next four years, this was an entertaining and amusing biography, and we ought to learn from our mistakes so we don't repeat them, which means we should study the worst president alongside studying the best.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can you really say you enjoyed a book about James Buchanan?
Well now you can!
Honestly, unless you're a civil war nerd (I was talking with a friend about Andrew Johnson recently and realized my friend had no idea who he was) you have little reason to know who he was.
By most accounts, a decent enough guy, not outstanding in anything. Fittingly the oldest man at the time to assume the presidency, Buchanan, when he acted at all, did things extremely slowly.
Besides visiting murder friends in jail, sending overwhelming military force to bully Paraguay(!), prejudicing Supreme Court rulings, and letting the civil war happen, all in 4 years, he was pretty mediocre.
The story from this book that sums up an indecisive and invariably wrong footed Buchanan comes from his former Secretary of State Lewis Cass who describes him as daily either sobbing inconsolably or praying.
We may have some dark days on the horizon in America. But at least we can say our president isn't James Buchanan.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pros: this is a short book and a quick read, it's fairly humorous, and it is peppered with lots of interesting morsels that made me pull out my phone and snap a picture so I wouldn't forget. (Examples: After Buchanan left office, people would come to his estate to throw rotten vegetables at the house and graffiti the fences. He sent US troops into PARAGUAY of all places. His madeira and whiskey collection was legendary, as were his parties.)

The cons: I wouldn't call this an actual work of historical scholarship. It sits at a very surface-level. There were multiple times where I would read a passage, wonder about the source, check the endnotes, and find nothing there that mentioned it. Typos were repeated in the text and in the endnotes/bibliography. It just felt...sloppy. The pages spent analyzing his acts as President were quite short compared to chapters on everything else.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Mr. Strauss's book on Buchanan and on rating the worst presidencies. This confirmed my understanding that Buchanan was elected largely because he was noncontroversial and "available" and had been out of the country as Ambassador to Great Britain in 1853-56. Mr. Strauss writes of Buchanan as a timid politician who essentially froze in place in the period between Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861. My own evolving sense was previously to rate Andrew Johnson one notch lower than Buchanan since Johnson was very deliberate in thwarting hopes for a humane two-sided reconstruction that protected African Americans, whereas Buchanan was an inept politican albeit with pro-Union intentions - no statesman or problem-solver - who continued the slide of the Pierce-Buchanan Doughface tag team toward a Civil War that might have been inevitable by 1860 given Deep South attitudes. But Mr. Strauss does tout some facts pulling for Buchanan as worst ever. E.g., I was not aware that Buchanan had intervened, even before his inauguration, to swing votes for the Dred Scott decision and therefore to enable a broader decision. Mr. Strauss also points out that Buchanan could have handled the John Brown trial much differently. The country could certainly have used a good powerful statesman at this point.
I also thought that Mr. Strauss's writing style, while informal as other readers have commented, was very charming. I felt like I could have enjoyed a beer with Mr. Strauss and gotten into some excited conversations!

[Bernard O'Leary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sitting here on the cusp of what seems likely to be the worst — perhaps even the last — presidency in American history, it’s good to reflect on disasters of the past.
America has had some bad presidents. Like, really terrible. Hoover, Harding and Grant are often held up as the worst, while modern pundits point to either Bush junior or Obama, depending on their allegiance. As far as Robert Strauss is concerned, the worst president was the man who preceded the greatest: James Buchanan, whose utter uselessness set the scene for the Civil War.
Buchanan was your typical career politician. Son of a self-made Irish immigrant, he started out as a lawyer and ambled into politics because it seemed like a sweet gig. He was famous for having almost no political opinions of his own, drifting between policies and even changing parties according to the prevailing political winds. But he was ambitious and was picturing himself in the White House as far back as the 1830s.
Party leaders such as Andrew Jackson recognised this ambition and hated it. Jackson sent him to Russia, saying “if I could have sent him further, I would have”. Buchanan was supposed to disappear into anonymity but instead he charmed Nicholas II and returned with a trade treaty that no one had expected. It was mostly the result of dumb luck, Russian desperation and Buchanan’s talent for throwing a terrific cocktail party, but it gave Buchanan a reputation as a statesman and dealmaker.
After being repeatedly frustrated in his attempts to secure the nomination, he was sent away again, this time as ambassador to Britain by Franklin Pierce. Buchanan, who never married and may have been gay, went to London with his niece where the two were a social sensation (he really did throw a great party).
They forgot about American politics almost entirely. Ironically, this is what allowed Buchanan to finally capture the highest office. The Union was being torn apart by the abolition question and everyone in congress had taken a stance. When Buchanan returned, he seemed the perfect nominee: neither pro- nor anti-slavery, hugely experienced in domestic and international politics and with a talent for striking unlikely deals.
The Democrats were the only serious contenders in the 1856 election, with the Whigs having collapsed, the Republicans still forming and the American Party (or Know-Nothings) being too crazy (although they probably would have done well in 2016.)
So, basically, nobody within the Democrats could oppose him, and no other party could oppose the Democrats. Buchanan basically became the President by default.
But it still should be fine, right? He was, as Hillary would be 160 years later, the most qualified person to ever run for President. What could possibly go wrong?
Buchanan set a new world record for screwing up, making one of his biggest blunders in his inauguration speech. It’s believed that the Chief Justice chatted with Buchanan before the swearing in ceremony and gave him a sneak preview of an upcoming Supreme Court decision. Buchanan was so pleased that he dropped a passage into his speech about how the court would shortly issue a decision that would settle the slavery question forever.
The case was the Dred Scott case, where a former slave was suing for his freedom based on time spent living in free states, citing the tenuous compromises on slavery that had been holding the Union together since 1850. The decision of the court was that the case was inadmissible. Scott was African and Africans were not recognised as human beings under the law. Oh, and also all of the compromises were unconstitutional.
The Dred Scott decision is generally recognised as the Worst. Supreme Court decision. Ever, not least of all because it set slave states and free states in conflict with each other. Navigating this situation without a civil war would require extraordinary leadership.
Buchanan’s response was… nothing. He took an almost zen approach to the Constitution, arguing that no state could legally secede from the Union but the union could not legally stop a state from seceding. Apart from that, he seemed to take almost no interest in the issue. Buchanan adopted the same hands-off for the second-biggest crisis of his term, the Panic of 1857, a market crash that caused a depression.
Instead, he focused on the important stuff. He tried to buy Cuba and make it a state. He allowed a disagreement over a pig to escalate into a war with Canada. He sent marines to Paraguay for no particular reason. He started war with Utah.
All of that is secondary to his biggest failing, which is that he allowed tensions over abolition to escalate to the point where civil war became inevitable. South Carolina began the process of seceding the day after Lincoln was elected; the war proper began just a few weeks after his inauguration.
So Buchanan’s claim to worst president ever hinges on one question: could he have stopped it? Strauss does dance past this a little, except to note that the marines who went to Paraguay could have perhaps been used to reinforce Fort Sumter. The problem is that Buchanan didn’t make any notable mistakes because he really didn’t do anything. His White House was a talking shop for his loyal cabinet but they seemed reluctant to do any actual executive work. Perhaps Buchanan would have made things much worse if he had tried, because god knows his other decisions were all lousy. Perhaps he could have somehow saved the union, maybe by challenging General Lee to a drinking competition.
We’ll never know. Buchanan’s greatest crime is to be passive in a role that is inherently active. Lincoln technically caused the war, but he did so by being bold and having strong beliefs. And when war came, he fought it and won. The office of President is essentially about masculine vigour and even the Confederates must have respected Lincoln’s courage on some level.
Buchanan wrote one letter to his successor. It arrived during the worst of the war when so much was at stake. It asked President Lincoln if he could keep an eye out for a series of books on French history that Buchanan had forgotten to take with him when he left. It also offered warm wishes to Mary Lincoln.

[T.R. Cross · Rating 4 out of 5]

My suspicions were raised when I learned the length of the book, tiny by presidential biography standards. Such a short book does not provide much chance to delve into the details of a President's life, the critical moments of the presidency, or how they shaped the world. So I came in with admittedly low expectations. The book is indeed short on details, painting Buchanan's life in broadstrokes. Strauss often taking time for digressions such as the origin of his love for presidential stats and his daughters hatred for running. It hits the major beats of Buchanan's life but doesn't pause to long to allow us to smell the flowers, so to speak. However, one must ask whether such a sad excuse for a president really deserves better?

I did find the musings on presidential ratings interesting, and I think he lays out the case for Buchanan as the Worst. President. Ever. I was asked multiple times while reading whether there would be an update to account for number 45. However, as much as the Orange Cheeto disgraces that noble office and mocks Adams blessing "May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under this Roof" it's hard to see him stooping to depths below Buchanan for Worst Ever. Then again, he has two more years...

[Paul Lunger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will admit the fact that as I've been reading more and more about the period in American history approaching the Civil War, I've been curious to see what I could find from a biography standpoint on our nation's 15th president who in his own right earned the title of "Worst President Ever" due to things that even I wasn't aware of. Robert Strauss offers a satirical biography of James Buchanan that explains why he isn't written about and also gets into the legacy of those lesser presidents in US History. "Worst. President. Ever.: James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents" explains Buchanan the person from his successes to the many, many foibles that would haunt the man who for that era was the most qualified person for the job. The book is a decent read and offers insights that are at times not well taught in history. While there may not be many biographies of Buchanan this book is one that anyone with a passing interest in should enjoy along with Strauss at times editorializing the roles of the weaker presidents and why they deserve those low ratings.

[Trevor Laing · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst. Book. Ever.

This read like a magazine written by someone who thinks they are far better than you. The book does nothing to really convince you that James Buchanan was the worse president ever, and barely talked about his presidency at all. As soon as the author began to make a point he would change direction and start talking about his wife or his daughters or how he was fascinated with presidents since he was a young boy. He also bragged relentlessly about his education and his wife’s education.
In addition to not really detailing fully why JB was the worse, the book also spent half a chapter talking about how James was possibly gay? It was random and felt a bit forced, like the author was pandering to modern audiences.

When he wasn���t telling stories about his family, accusing James of being gay, or just saying the phrase “worst president ever” he was putting down fellow writers. Any other biographer of JB was referred to as a “Buchanan Apologist.”

If you are looking for a biography of substance on this president or his presidency this book is not for you. If you want to read a poorly written rag magazine written by a “highly educated” fan of presidents, still don’t read this book.

[Marion · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the Audible version of this book on James Buchanan and found it to be very conversational in tone and modern in perspective (which I liked). However, Strauss digresses so much throughout the book that it is almost impossible to stay on point (which I didn’t like). He tells way too much about his own youth and his father and his family life and his past career hobnobbing with sports stars and celebrities. He also digresses many times on the hat trick of rating presidents at all.

He doesn’t really get to the meat of Buchanan’s presidency and the serious mistakes made that have led to an almost universal belief among presidential scholars that he was the worst of our presidents until the last 1/3 of the book(which was very interesting).
After learning his faults, I believe President Buchanan must be smiling wherever he is in the afterlife because the 2016 election has brought us the lowest of the low among Presidents. And the title of this book has already become an anachronism.

[John DiConsiglio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for history purists, journalist Strauss’ sorta-bio follows the bungling POTUS 15, but also frequently detours into personal topics, like his own treks with his daughter to presidential birthplaces & their giftshops. Tongue-in-cheek, it’s an oddly entertaining mix—despite some jaw-droppingly weird statements. (“Obama has been called among the worst presidents.” “Kennedy had some moderate success.”) Buchanan is almost universally condemned as the White House’s worst of the worst, mostly for doing nothing to head-off the Civil War. Written in 2016, Strauss argues only Harding & Pierce can compete. Will an orange contender made a title bid?

[Steve Rice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. One of the weaker presidential biographies that I’ve read. The book is fairly simplistic in its analysis. The author interjecting himself into the narrative from time to time, I found to be distracting. But, he does make a case for Buchanan being the worst, and Buchanan’s reluctance to take much unifying action as the nation stumbled toward civil war is his legacy. Not a very scholarly book, but a quick, casual read.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable history of the "least of our lesser presidents" - complete with modern-day commentary detours that help address Buchanan's legacy and the obsession to rank our presidents.

Recommended for presidential history lovers, those interested in the run-up to the Civil War, and any dyed-in-the-wool-but-still-realistic Buchananites from Lancaster interested in their native son.

[Allie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and modern. Draw attention to the issues readers care about in today's times.