If you had to recommend a biography of each US President (from Washington to Clinton) what would they be and why? Alternatively, why is this a bad question?

by chikindiner

I don't expect one person to be able to give a run down on a biography for each President. I'm just on a mission to read a biography on each of them and am looking for suggestions.

SilverRoyce

I'd recommend

/u/gent2012 list here

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1hhnyj/not_sure_if_this_is_the_right_place_to_post_this/

and I'd like to especially flag

First off, the best place to start would probably be the University of Kansas's American Presidency Series (note that this is different from the American Presidents Series, which is done from NY Times books. Always be sure to check the publisher). This series is great for getting a good understanding of what historians in general have written about each respective president; however, the series only focuses on the presidency, which is more constrained than what you're [original OP was] looking for.

With the exception of the 2017 Grant biography they're all relatively short which makes them a nice place to go for this sort of project. They're all high quality works.