About the Author

Lewis L. Gould is visiting distinguished professor, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois, USA. He is the author of Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Creating the Modern First Lady, also from Kansas.

Reviews

"Chief Executive to Chief Justice is a valuable source, not only for information about Taft but also as a solid insight into how a principled individual may adopt what seem to be situational ethics to deal with complex issues. The book also corrects any mistaken notion that political partisanship was higher minded a century ago than at present."--Presidential Studies Quarterly

"Lew Gould has long been an indispensable guide to the Presidency, particularly during the McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson eras. In this engaging and engrossing book, Gould tells the story of how Taft satisfied his deepest ambition and became Chief Justice of the United States."--Laura Kalman, Professor of History, University of California, Santa Barbara"No one knows more than Lew Gould about the modern American Presidency, especially the period encompassing the end of the populist movement in the 1890s and the era of the so-called 'progressive movement" (1900-1920). A prolific author, he has written a dozen books on just this topic alone. Now he has branched out to study the most neglected period of President William Howard Taft's long and much-debated political career--the eight years between the time he left the White House in 1913 and his appointment as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1921. With remarkable clarity and insight, Gould shows how ex-presidents, even when not holding high political office, can, and have, made important contributions to the nation's history. A 'must read.'"--Burton I. Kaufman, author of The Post-Presidency from Washington to Clinton