Citizen-In-Chief: The Second Lives of the American Presidents - Paperback

by Leonard Benardo (Author), Jennifer Weiss (Author)

"[A] remarkably revealing history....This well-researched, opinionated account does a fine job of filling a surprisingly empty historical niche."
--Publishers Weekly

Citizen-in-Chief, The Second Lives of the American Presidents, is a smartly researched, surprising, often witty, and always revealing look at former presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush. Authors Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss offer readers entertaining true stories of the radical turns, provocative rehabilitations, and tragic trajectories of presidential lives after the White House. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calls Citizen-in-Chief, "an engrossing book, Benardo and Weiss tell a fascinating tale," and he properly states that where our nation's leaders went after leading is often "more interesting than the presidency itself."

Back Jacket

Despite their colossal achievements as founding fathers, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe all ended their lives impoverished and in debt.

Ulysses S. Grant saved his family from a life of penury by finishing his bestselling memoirs on the very eve of his death.

Having failed to address HIV-AIDS effectively as president, Bill Clinton directed groundbreaking efforts after leaving office to make life-saving AIDS drugs affordable.

In Citizen-in-Chief, Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss examine the dramatic, little-known, sometimes inspiring, and often heartrending post-presidential lives of former Oval Office occupants. From the high-profile humanitarianism of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to the quiet achievements of Rutherford B. Hayes and Herbert Hoover, Citizen-in-Chief reveals that the true stories of great leaders are rarely complete once they leave the White House.