Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House
February 12, 2024
Cohen (Accidental Presidents), a former adviser to secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, offers an affable exploration of life after the presidency. With a storyteller’s verve, he profiles seven presidents—Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush. Opening the narrative in 1825, when an 82-year-old Jefferson’s ambitions for the University of Virginia, which he’d founded, were threatened by a days-long student riot, Cohen explains that in his later years, the former president had come to consider UVA as a crowning achievement, second only to his achievements as a politician. Unlike Jefferson, most of the other presidents Cohen profiles turned to activism or philanthropy as a means of redeeming themselves after lackluster presidencies: Adams’s unsuccessful single term in the White House was followed by a triumphant and effective embrace of abolitionism as a congressman, and Hoover led “international famine relief” after WWII hoping to be remembered as a humanitarian rather than for the Great Depression. Bush stands out for removing himself entirely from public affairs after his disastrous second term ended. Though sometimes contorted by Cohen’s determined nonpartisanship (he even spins Bush’s postpresidency painting career as inspiring: “His work elevates people often overlooked... and... contributes to important conversations”), this survey is redeemed by its unique premise. The result is a fresh and informative take on presidential history.