There are not a lot of biographies written about Taft. This book is a part of the American Presidency Series. It focuses only on Taft's presidency, providing a relatively comprehensive account of those four years.

Although Taft was hand selected by Theodore Roosevelt as his successor, Taft struggled to fill the shoes of the charismatic Roosevelt. Taft faced a number of controversies during his first two years in office, and never seemed to find his political footing. When the Democrats gained Congressional seats in the 1910 elections, Taft had even more trouble achieving his goals. As it became obvious that Taft's stance on major issues and on the powers of the President differed substantially from Roosevelt's, Taft and Roosevelt became openly antagonistic towards one another. When Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate in the 1912 election, Taft finished a distant third and became a one-term president.

Because Taft was President exactly 100 years ago, it was interesting to compare the Presidency from then to now. For example, the State of the Union was not a televised speech (or even a radio-broadcast speech), but a letter to Congress. Taft's use of government funds to travel around the country was controversial, and his trip to Panama was even more unusual.

While this book provided a good description of Taft's presidency, informed by documents that had not been used by previous biographers, it was a little dry. While the major events were covered, there was less analysis of Taft's presidency as a whole. Because Roosevelt played such a big part in Taft's presidency, many of these same events were covered in the Roosevelt biography that I read last month. Even so, I was glad to get a better understanding of this President. ( )