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Great Presidents
Course Lecture Titles 1. American Presidency 2. G. Washington-Rise of a Patriot 3. G. Washington-American Liberator 4. G. Washington-First President 5. G. Washington-American Icon 6. T. Jefferson-Pen of Freedom 7. T. Jefferson-Party Leader 8. T. Jefferson-Expansionist President 9. T. Jefferson-Agonies of a Second Term 10. Andrew Jackson-Hero of New Republic 11. Andrew Jackson-Conqueror Returns 12. Andrew Jackson-Warrior President 13. Andrew Jackson-A President Defiant 14. James K. Polk-Party Loyalist 15. James K. Polk-First Dark Horse 16. James K. Polk-Apostle of Manifest Destiny 17. A. Lincoln-Frontier Politician 18. A. Lincoln-First Republican President 19. A. Lincoln-Wartime Leader 20. A. Lincoln-Martyred President 21. T. Roosevelt-Patrician Reformer 22. T. Roosevelt-Cowboy as President 23. T. Roosevelt-Progressive Dynamo 24. T. Roosevelt-Third-Party Crusader 25. Woodrow Wilson-American Visionary 26. Woodrow Wilson-Professor as Politician 27. Woodrow Wilson-World Stage 28. Woodrow Wilson-Fight for Postwar Peace 29. F. D. Roosevelt-Provocative Politician 30. F. D. Roosevelt-New Dealer 31. F. D. Roosevelt-Into Storm 32. F. D. Roosevelt-President in a World at War 33. Harry S Truman-A Struggle for Success 34. Harry S Truman-Needing America's Prayers 35. Harry S Truman-Winning Peace 36. Harry S Truman-No Accidental President 37. John F. Kennedy-Construction of a Politician 38. John F. Kennedy-Emergence of a President 39. John F. Kennedy-A President in Crisis 40. John F. Kennedy-His Final Challenges 41. Lyndon Johnson-Politician in Rough 42. Lyndon Johnson-Professional Politician 43. Lyndon Johnson-Building Great Society 44. Lyndon Johnson-Acrimony at Home and Abroad 45. R. Reagan-"Gipper" 46. R. Reagan-A Conservative in White House 47. R. Reagan-Acting President 48. R. Reagan-Teflon President
24 pages, Audio CD
First published January 1, 2000
3 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Allan J. Lichtman
18 books108 followersAllan J. Lichtman is Distinguished Professor of History at The American University in Washington, D.C. and the author of many acclaimed books on U.S. political history, including White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement (finalist, 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Non-fiction), FDR and the Jews (with Richard Breitman), and The Case for Impeachment.
Professor Lichtman devised a model (“Keys to the White House”) with Vladimir Keilis-Borok to predict the outcome of US presidential elections; said model has been correct since 1984. He is regularly sought out by the media for his authoritative views on voting and elections.
Professor Lichtman devised a model (“Keys to the White House”) with Vladimir Keilis-Borok to predict the outcome of US presidential elections; said model has been correct since 1984. He is regularly sought out by the media for his authoritative views on voting and elections.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 20, 2020
This course devotes 4 lectures (about 30 minutes each) to 12 presidents that had a great deal of influence both on the office & the country. Don't get the idea that Lichtman thinks they were perfect or even right all the time. They all had their good & bad points, but they were 'great' meaning influential. He briefly covers their early life, the events that shaped the attitudes they brought into office, the highlights from their presidential terms, & afterward when appropriate. With so much material to cover, the facts are often bare, but he does a pretty good job of describing customs & attitudes that had a lot of bearing on their actions. He's a very good speaker & made the course interesting.
George Washington - (1789-97, #1) Certainly the greatest & Lichtman does a creditable job showing just how tough a job the first terms were. I read Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations not long ago. If you like this section, I highly recommend it. There's a lot more to the story, but he manages to tie the Federalist ideals in well with the opposition that Jefferson created.
Thomas Jefferson - (1801-9, #3) Impossibly, Lichtman does an excellent job showing just how confused Jefferson's ideals & practical applications were. Probably the most quoted & misunderstood president, Jefferson aspired to much higher goals than he actually practiced. He was both far ahead of his times in some ways, yet very much a man of his times in others. This is most evident in his views & relationships with blacks, but it's also obvious in his politics. The more I read about him, the more intriguing he is. Like so many of the presidents that followed him, he defies the good/bad label, so 'great' has to do.
Andrew Jackson - (1829-37, #7) the first 'common man' president, he's best known for extending the power of the presidency even further than before & removing the Indians along the Trail of Tears & tearing down the Bank of America. Some of his greatest achievements came before & after his term in office. Before, he pushed the Spanish out of Florida & afterward his proteges Van Buren & Polk continued his policies. The Democratic party also coalesced under his presidency & he recognized Texas as separate from Mexico. On top of all that, he was a scrapper.
TGC ends Part 1 at the end of the third of the Jackson lectures & starts Part 2 with part 4 of AJ. Why? If you're buying this, beware. Annoying, even though I got the whole thing from the library.
James K. Polk - (1845-489, #11) I was surprised to see him listed since he's not often mentioned & he's the only 1 term president on this list, but he accomplished everything on his agenda which included a war with Mexico to settle Texas in as a state, grab the SW & California, as well as the Oregon territory from Great Britain. While Lichtman points out the advantages to trade, he doesn't mention how securing the west coast protected the US from foreign powers geographically. He also established an independent Federal treasury system. Wow!
Abraham Lincoln - (1861-65, #16) Another good job & he really managed to show Lincoln's attitudes toward slavery well against the practicalities of achieving his position & power. He left me with a lot of questions on how much better the reconstruction would have been had he been in charge.
Theodore Roosevelt - (1901-09, #26) I've read several books by & about the Colonel, so no surprises. His story is a whirlwind, of course. It's wearing just trying to keep up with synopsis of his accomplishments.
Woodrow Wilson - (1913-21, #28) The League of Nations & many other foreign policies that pushed the US into the International scene as well as the Federal Reserve Act & WWI. Like his predecessors, pretty bad civil rights, though.
Franklin Roosevelt - (1933-45, #32) The only president elected 4 times, although he only served 3 terms since he died early in the fourth. He dealt with the Great Depression with the New Deal & WWII finally saw the economy turn around. Terrible civil rights record.
Harry S Truman - (1945-53, #33) I never knew how much of an unknown he was until his post as VP propelled him into the presidency. He had a lot to deal with & seems to have done really well setting up the basics for those that followed. I'm sure a lot will second guess his use of the atomic bomb, but Lichtman managed to get across the Soviet pressure as well as the Japanese fanaticism well.
John F. Kennedy - (1961-63, #35) an excellent background & hit the high points well, not sparing him for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Good, if quick coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis & the middling road he took despite LeMay's push. NASA, Peace Corp, & more.
Lyndon B. Johnson - (1963-69, #36) a southern Democrat with an incredibly liberal home agenda, I forget that LBJ saw the founding of so many of JFK's reforms & added his own by leading NASA, the Civil Rights Act, Clean Air, & welfare. His legacy is overshadowed by his idiocy in Vietnam & the riots that mocked his efforts at reform. Strange times where he was the figurehead of many of the injustices he worked so hard to end.
Ronald Reagan - (1981-89, #40) Dutch, the Teflon President was a somewhat surprising pick since it's tough to put the term great on so recent a figure & his legacy is so mixed. I was married & raising my kids during his terms, so was paying attention. I remember the double digit unemployment & mortgage rates that turned around with his economic policies & was gratified that Lichtman included Clinton's adherence to them, something that too many forget. Since I'm not a Conservative (or a Liberal), I wasn't happy with most of his other domestic policies, though. His foreign policies against the Soviets sure seemed to have worked out, though. Having grown up in a MAD world, his work with Gorbachev & the INF sure seemed pretty great.
It was a truly a great 24 hour course in the history of the presidents of the US.
Wikipedia's List of US Presidents
George Washington - (1789-97, #1) Certainly the greatest & Lichtman does a creditable job showing just how tough a job the first terms were. I read Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations not long ago. If you like this section, I highly recommend it. There's a lot more to the story, but he manages to tie the Federalist ideals in well with the opposition that Jefferson created.
Thomas Jefferson - (1801-9, #3) Impossibly, Lichtman does an excellent job showing just how confused Jefferson's ideals & practical applications were. Probably the most quoted & misunderstood president, Jefferson aspired to much higher goals than he actually practiced. He was both far ahead of his times in some ways, yet very much a man of his times in others. This is most evident in his views & relationships with blacks, but it's also obvious in his politics. The more I read about him, the more intriguing he is. Like so many of the presidents that followed him, he defies the good/bad label, so 'great' has to do.
Andrew Jackson - (1829-37, #7) the first 'common man' president, he's best known for extending the power of the presidency even further than before & removing the Indians along the Trail of Tears & tearing down the Bank of America. Some of his greatest achievements came before & after his term in office. Before, he pushed the Spanish out of Florida & afterward his proteges Van Buren & Polk continued his policies. The Democratic party also coalesced under his presidency & he recognized Texas as separate from Mexico. On top of all that, he was a scrapper.
TGC ends Part 1 at the end of the third of the Jackson lectures & starts Part 2 with part 4 of AJ. Why? If you're buying this, beware. Annoying, even though I got the whole thing from the library.
James K. Polk - (1845-489, #11) I was surprised to see him listed since he's not often mentioned & he's the only 1 term president on this list, but he accomplished everything on his agenda which included a war with Mexico to settle Texas in as a state, grab the SW & California, as well as the Oregon territory from Great Britain. While Lichtman points out the advantages to trade, he doesn't mention how securing the west coast protected the US from foreign powers geographically. He also established an independent Federal treasury system. Wow!
Abraham Lincoln - (1861-65, #16) Another good job & he really managed to show Lincoln's attitudes toward slavery well against the practicalities of achieving his position & power. He left me with a lot of questions on how much better the reconstruction would have been had he been in charge.
Theodore Roosevelt - (1901-09, #26) I've read several books by & about the Colonel, so no surprises. His story is a whirlwind, of course. It's wearing just trying to keep up with synopsis of his accomplishments.
Woodrow Wilson - (1913-21, #28) The League of Nations & many other foreign policies that pushed the US into the International scene as well as the Federal Reserve Act & WWI. Like his predecessors, pretty bad civil rights, though.
Franklin Roosevelt - (1933-45, #32) The only president elected 4 times, although he only served 3 terms since he died early in the fourth. He dealt with the Great Depression with the New Deal & WWII finally saw the economy turn around. Terrible civil rights record.
Harry S Truman - (1945-53, #33) I never knew how much of an unknown he was until his post as VP propelled him into the presidency. He had a lot to deal with & seems to have done really well setting up the basics for those that followed. I'm sure a lot will second guess his use of the atomic bomb, but Lichtman managed to get across the Soviet pressure as well as the Japanese fanaticism well.
John F. Kennedy - (1961-63, #35) an excellent background & hit the high points well, not sparing him for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Good, if quick coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis & the middling road he took despite LeMay's push. NASA, Peace Corp, & more.
Lyndon B. Johnson - (1963-69, #36) a southern Democrat with an incredibly liberal home agenda, I forget that LBJ saw the founding of so many of JFK's reforms & added his own by leading NASA, the Civil Rights Act, Clean Air, & welfare. His legacy is overshadowed by his idiocy in Vietnam & the riots that mocked his efforts at reform. Strange times where he was the figurehead of many of the injustices he worked so hard to end.
Ronald Reagan - (1981-89, #40) Dutch, the Teflon President was a somewhat surprising pick since it's tough to put the term great on so recent a figure & his legacy is so mixed. I was married & raising my kids during his terms, so was paying attention. I remember the double digit unemployment & mortgage rates that turned around with his economic policies & was gratified that Lichtman included Clinton's adherence to them, something that too many forget. Since I'm not a Conservative (or a Liberal), I wasn't happy with most of his other domestic policies, though. His foreign policies against the Soviets sure seemed to have worked out, though. Having grown up in a MAD world, his work with Gorbachev & the INF sure seemed pretty great.
It was a truly a great 24 hour course in the history of the presidents of the US.
Wikipedia's List of US Presidents
March 25, 2024
3.5 stars rounded down to 3. This is a lecture series containing 48 lectures. Professor Lichtman speaks well and is easy to listen to. He gets pretty excited about his topic and is a little breathless at times, but it's not that off putting. He has chosen twelve presidents from American history that he thinks are great and gives almost each one four lectures each (except for President Polk, who only gets three lectures, and there is one intro lecture). The introductory lectures in almost all courses are the most boring because usually they are just previewing what they are going to talk about.
48 lectures is a lot to listen to. I enjoy learning about U.S. Presidents. I have a degree in history, so maybe I am not the target audience for this course. It seemed a little high schoolish for me. I didn't feel Professor Lichtman went into enough depth for me on the aspects that made each of the presidents great. He did have some good anecdotes for some of the presidents. It seems that his favorite presidents were John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. This lecture series was published in the year 2000, so there are no recent presidents in the lecture series, with the most recent being President Reagan. Overall, I think it was a good lecture series, but not a great one.
48 lectures is a lot to listen to. I enjoy learning about U.S. Presidents. I have a degree in history, so maybe I am not the target audience for this course. It seemed a little high schoolish for me. I didn't feel Professor Lichtman went into enough depth for me on the aspects that made each of the presidents great. He did have some good anecdotes for some of the presidents. It seems that his favorite presidents were John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. This lecture series was published in the year 2000, so there are no recent presidents in the lecture series, with the most recent being President Reagan. Overall, I think it was a good lecture series, but not a great one.
May 19, 2025
I took a class with Prof. Lichtman at American University many years ago. Listening to these audiobooks brought me right back to his classroom, and I only wish I could've recorded his lectures and listened to them at my own pace because he's a phenomenal storyteller. I highly recommend this series to anyone interested in the stories of some of America's most interesting and influential leaders, though perhaps at 1.25x speed because it's nearly 25 hours of content.
February 17, 2020
Good coverage of the key points of multiple presidents who impacted the structure of the institution of the Presidency and of the government in general of the United States. Professor Lichtman is an excellent lecturer and easy to listen to. While it is impossible to comprehensively cover such broad biographical detail in this format, the cursory view in these lectures emphasized the most significant contributions of these individual presidents. I enjoyed it.
November 16, 2017
Lots of information about 10 of the greatest Presidents. I learned a lot about a few that are not as vaunted, such as Polk and Jackson. I am still scratching my head over how Andrew Jackson could have gotten on this list of "Great Presidents". Yes he extended the landmass of the United States but did so at the expense of the Native American Indian lives and at the expense of our neighbor Mexico. It seems the criteria is Machiavellian - the end justifies the means.
I have to recommend this course since I believe Americans need to learn more about their history!
I have to recommend this course since I believe Americans need to learn more about their history!
March 12, 2025
I have had a great experience with the Great Courses on Audible. Engaging lecturers. Quality research. And these lectures are no exception. Dr. Lichtman takes us through the lives and careers of 12 Great Presidents, from Washington to Reagan. The course doubled as a review of American history. I realized how many gaps I had in my knowledge, so my next Great Course will be on The History of the United States (43.5 hours!).
February 23, 2019
This review of 12 of the great presidents of our country is very engaging and educational. The lecturer is extremely knowledgeable, and presents the information clearly. I learned a lot about some of the amazing men who have made our country what it is today.
June 23, 2018
Should have titled "Presidents Who Decided to Change the Presidency"
August 6, 2015
I bought this course for homeschool. But my student hated the thing. At about the half way point I decided to stop force feeding it to him and finished it alone.
I really enjoyed this course. Most of the information was new to me. And it was presented in an interesting way.
I really enjoyed this course. Most of the information was new to me. And it was presented in an interesting way.
February 9, 2009
I think history buffs would love this. A history buff I am not. :)
March 27, 2011
note to self- pt 1-2 of 4 (lectures 1-24)
August 5, 2012
A few surprises here- didn't expect to find Polk, Truman or LBJ, but he makes a good case for everyone included.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews