Hatred of America’s Presidents: Personal Attacks on the White House from Washington to Trump. Edited by Lori Cox Han. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2018. 396 pages. Acid-free $94 (ISBN 978-1-4408-5436-1). Ebook Available (978-1-4408-5437-8), call for pricing.

Books on the greatness of American presidents fill America’s bookstore shelves. However, this work focuses instead on the hatred and opposition that each president faced. It sets itself apart from a book like The American President: A Complete History (by Kathryn Moore), which covers the national and world events of each president’s term, but does not necessarily cover the backlash presidents receive in response to those events. Many books focus on assassinations of presidents, but they do not typically include additional information about every president’s term, as this one does.

This volume includes contextual information such as public opinions, political oppositions, and the relationship between the president and the press. This focus provides a very different aspect of the man in office at that time, something other books are often not able to do. The editor of the book has also given the reader a definition to standardize the application of hate/hatred: “intense dislike or hostility directed at someone or something, includes the synonyms such as loathing, aversion, animosity, or ill will” (xi), and each author wrote with this definition in mind.

Hatred of America’s Presidents was inspired by a statement made by President Trump in 2017 in which he declared, “No politician in history . . . has been treated worse or more unfairly” (ix). The editor does acknowledge that it is hard to be objective in today’s hyper-partisan political environment, but he inquires about how such a thing could be measured and whether Trump’s statement would stand up to history.

As the title would suggest, this work focuses on the criticism of each president. The book includes an introduction and is formatted with one chapter per president, written by an expert on that particular president or historical period. The chapters do vary in tone because various individuals have written them, but also because the circumstances of each presidential term are so different in terms of opinion polls, political rivals, the relationship with the press, and the personality of the president. Other contextual information includes new historical developments such as political parties’ machines, the religious right, and political action committees that would mail or email propaganda directly to the people.

The target audience for this book is hard to pinpoint, but it would be useful as a resource to read a few chapters for a class or for personal understanding. The writing is reminiscent of a college textbook, with further readings suggested at the end of each chapter. It provides a collection of unique facts that fills a void in the genre. Librarians collecting for colleges, universities, and large public libraries would find it useful for their political science and history collections.—Susan Elkins, Digital Resources Librarian, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas