"Appleby has succeeded in writing as good a brief study of this complex man as is imaginable. Another in a series on the American chief executives edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., her elegant book is a liberal's take on the complex, sphinx-like founder of American liberalism. Appleby convincingly argues that the third president's greatest legacies were limited government (breached, however, by the opportunism that characterized his own presidency) and the great expansion of democracy."—Publishers Weekly

"Historians generally agree that James Buchanan was the worst U.S. president. After all, it was on his unhappy watch that the Union disintegrated. Far from wishing to rehabilitate Buchanan, Baker wants to bury him deeper in infamy. She brilliantly shows how Buchanan's mishandling of the mini-Civil War between pro- and anti-slavery factions in Kansas led to John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry and helped make the greater conflict inevitable, and how his vacillation and dithering allowed rebels to seize federal forts and arsenals across the South."—Foreign Affairs

"In Mordecai: An Early American Family, Emily Bingham brings to life a compelling family whose struggles illuminate the first century of the American Republic. From the American Revolution to the Civil War and beyond, this 'little faithful band of love and duty' balanced their devotion to each other, their Jewish faith, and their identity as Southerners through periods of intellectual, political, and economic turmoil. Drawing on published writings and thousands of letters by the men and women of this articulate family, Emily Bingham tells a vivid and fascinating story. The Mordecais take their place as one of the great American families in this lively, compassionate, and probing group portrait."—Joy Kasson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"As a synthesis of modern scholarship on the Revolution, this important book has no rival."—Pauline Maier, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Written with an elegant simplicity of style, this pioneering study has become an enduring classic in the field of American colonial and environmental history."—Howard R. Lamar, Yale University