a little short and I should have liked more details about home life and less about the military campaigns, but it gave all the highlights. ( )

Not for the first time, the editors of this series have succumbed to the temptation to assign a military president to a military man and gotten exactly what they deserve: an analysis of their generalship followed by a once-over-lightly on their presidency. This is doubly unfortunate here, as the author relegates to his front matter an intriguing conversation he once fell into at a banquet with "someone who appeared to know a lot about history" who opined that Taylor was the one man who could have prevented the War of the Rebellion. Now that would have made a fine anchor, particularly since it fits right into the wheelhouse of the original premise of the series, viz., cut to the chase and dig into the one most significant legacy of the presidency. Instead, what we get is a slapdash account of the Mexican War with a few chapters on the presidency appended. Admittedly, Taylor's presidency wasn't that significant, but better analyses are quite possible and have been done; check out his volume in the University Press of Kansas' presidency series and read one (and find out about the Fillmore administration in the bargain). ( )

Zachary Taylor ranks among that small group of presidents who was more famous for what they did before they became president than for their achievements once they occupied the office. A career army officer, he shot to fame when he led his troops to victory over Mexican forces in the Mexican War. Basking in the adulation of a grateful nation, his parlayed his triumph into a victory as the Whig candidate in the 1848 presidential election, only to have his presidency cut short by his death less than a year and a half after taking office.

Given Taylor’s background and claim to fame, John S. D. Eisenhower would seem to be the ideal candidate to write a biography of America’s 12th president. The son of a former president, he was a career army officer himself before retiring to become a prolific author of military histories. Yet the end result is disappointing. Eisenhower’s slim book is a sketchy account of Taylor’s life, one that provides only the barest of details about the man and little real understanding of his role in American history. The first quarter-century of Taylor’s life are covered in a scant eight paragraphs, reflecting the lack of effort in understanding the role these early years played in shaping his personality. Much of his early military career is also glossed over in a rush to get to the critical years of the Mexican War. These chapters play to Eisenhower’s strengths, allowing him to draw upon his previous work on the conflict, . Yet even here precious space is wasted providing unnecessary or superfluous background to events, diminishing the book’s value as a biography of Taylor even further.

Though Eisenhower’s final chapters dealing with Taylor’s time as president provide more in the way of detail and analysis, they cannot make up for the overall deficiencies of this book. Overall Eisenhower’s biography is a disappointing entry in “The American Presidents” series, one that fails to reflect the considerable strengths the author brought to the project. Readers seeking more than the barest details of Taylor’s life would be better off picking up K. Jack Bauer’s far more substantial [b:Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest|1551823|Zachary Taylor Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest|K. Jack Bauer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348868729s/1551823.jpg|1544202] instead of this book, with fails to satisfy any real appetite to learn about Taylor or his role in American history. ( )

Brief review of ZT's career. Not in-depth enough to be a good read. ( )

This is a good summary, in 140 pages of actual text, of Taylor's life, focusing mainly on his command of US troops in the Mexican War, and 16 months as president (1849-50). This is part of the Times Books American Presidents series which offers similar treatments of most other presidents. The author is John S. D. Eisenhower who has written nine other books, most dealing with this same period, and the WWI and WWII years. There are several interesting tidbits about his life and record. For example, he very nearly became Jefferson Davis's father-in-law but Taylor would not permit his daughters to marry a military man. Most of his papers and letters were destroyed during the Civil War when his son's plantation was razed by the Union Army. Taylor was apparently the one to coin the term "First Lady". The issues that he struggled with during his brief presidency included slavery, the admission into the Union of California, New Mexico, and Utah, and a treaty with Britain that ultimately led to the Panama Canal. He became ill on the day of the laying of the Washington Monument cornerstone and died a few days later. I am doing a slow, casual reading of the terms of our US presidents, interweaving the mammoth 900 page bios of the "biggies" like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR, with less detailed bios on the "others" and it appears this series will suit my interests adequately. ( )