The Best and Worst Presidential Cabinets in U.S. History

A bibliography

Over the last year, I’ve worked with Great Courses (now Wondrium) to create a new Audible course on the history of the president’s cabinet. It’s chock full of scandal, power, failure, leadership, and very colorful characters. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Like all history, my work is built on the scholarship of generations of historians and journalists that come before me. Here is the bibliography of all the books and scholarly articles I consulted, plus about a million op-eds and newspapers articles.

One caveat. For my early American history, I work really hard to have gender parity in my citations and cultivate a diverse stable of authors. As I put together this bibliography, I was shocked to see the imbalance in my presidential library. I will be working to rectify that problem, so I’d welcome any recommendations for books on the presidency by women and people of color.

The Best and Worst Presidential Cabinets Audible Course Bibliography

1. Albright, Madeleine. Madam Secretary, 2003.

2. Allgor, Catherine. Parlor Politics, 2002.

3. Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier and President, 1991.

4. Avlon, John. Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

5. Badger, Anthony J. FDR: The First Hundred Days, 2008.

6. Baime, A.J. The Accidental President, 2017.

7. Baker, Peter. Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, 2013.

8. Baker, Peter and Susan Glasser. The Man Who Ran Washington, 2020.

9. Bauer, Bob and Jack Goldsmith. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency, 2020.

10. Berkin, Carol. A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism. New York: Basic Books, 2017.

11. Berfield, Susan. The Hour of Fate, 2020.

12. Brands, H.W. Andrew Jackson, 2006.

13. Brands, H.W. T.R.: The Last Romantic, 2019.