Its writing style occasionally feels old and stiff and it has a tendency to embrace far more detail than most readers will ever require (or desire). * My first Taft-only biography was Henry Pringle’s 1939 “ The Life and Times of William Howard Taft.” Weighing in at a hefty 1,079 pages, this two-volume classic seems to be the best full-scale treatment of Taft despite its flaws. Overall, however, “The Bully Pulpit” proved a fantastic read and should be considered indispensable for anyone tackling either TR or Taft. But it cannot quite replace dedicated biographies of TR or Taft, where more emphasis and context can be provided for each. “The Bully Pulpit” is very well written, consistently entertaining and absolutely compelling. Because their public careers were so closely intertwined during decades of great consequence, Goodwin’s approach seems elegant…and almost too obvious. This biography simultaneously explores the lives of both Roosevelt and Taft in an incredibly interesting and nearly seamless way. * The first biography of Taft I read was actually part of my earlier journey through Theodore Roosevelt’s life: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 2013 “ The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism.”

But despite this limited selection, I came to know Taft quite well. One is quite old, one is focused primarily on his presidency and one is really a dual-biography providing equal time to Teddy Roosevelt. There are few to choose from and I have only three in my collection. Unfortunately, the world of Taft-oriented biographies is not sizable. And Taft spent most of that time exactly where he wanted to be all along: as Chief Justice. The destruction of Taft’s friendship with TR is heartbreaking (and captivating) but in the end, of course, Taft outlived the increasingly unhinged Roosevelt by more than a decade. His wife constantly pushed him to live up to his “full potential” and Theodore Roosevelt, seeking a worthy successor, failed to appreciate that he didn’t have the necessary dose of enthusiasm, or talent, for leading the nation.

Taft suffered the regrettable misfortune of having his presidency sandwiched between Theodore Roosevelt (a hard act to follow no matter what your political taste) and Woodrow Wilson (who history remembers as a president of great consequence).īut Taft’s story is an interesting tale of a talented legal mind who found himself incessantly (and reluctantly) pulled into the political arena. He would prefer to be remembered as the only former president to have also served as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Taft is often remembered as the president who may have gotten himself stuck in the White House bathtub.

William Howard Taft by Jonathan Lurie