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INDISPENSABLE MEN
Touring of the Lives and Careers of American Presidents
(Fourteen Lectures)
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Lecture 1: Does Character Count?
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Synopsis: In recent years, pundits and politicians alike have asked this question; others debate the very meaning of the term. Do personal and political character diverge? When does an idealist become an ideologue? Is consistency an unaffordable luxury in the White House, and does the national interest trump individual conviction? Richard Norton Smith leads a provocative, often humorous, and frequently surprising re-examination of the nation's highest office, and what it takes to land on Mount Rushmore.
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Lecture 2: Presidents at War
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Synopsis: Richard Norton Smith examines the different leadership styles of war presidents, including James Madison, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon.
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Lecture 3: The Surprising George Washington
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Synopsis: Enjoy an "up close and personal" look at the man behind the marble statue. George Washington's personality and character shaped not only the presidency, but the early republic in ways that are still being felt.
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Lecture 4: Like Father Like Son: The Adamses of Massachusetts
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Synopsis: While exploring the lives and careers of John and John Quincy Adams, Richard Norton Smith looks at the limits of virtue and the dangers of adopting a deliberately non-political approach to the world's most politically demanding office.
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Lecture 5: Presidential Lies
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Synopsis: Some are necessary for reasons of statecraft, others for political (or medical) survival. Richard Norton Smith looks at the age old debate concerning presidential health, and describe some truly astonishing coverups.
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Lecture 6: Three From Virginia: Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe
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Synopsis: It might be argued that these three presidents from the Old Dominion -- Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe -- add up to a single, twenty-four year chapter in the history of Young America. Each wedded in theory to limited government, each grappled in reality with issues testing their narrow reading of the Constitution.
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Lecture 7: The Fiery Trial of Abraham Lincoln
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Synopsis: The Fiery Trial of Abraham Lincoln examines Lincoln's "permanent campaign" for status and political success, which morphed over time into something much more important than either. In this age rife with cynicism about politics, here is a politician who converted mere ambition into the leadership model against which all presidents are judged.
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Lecture 8: The Gold in the Gilded Age
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Synopsis: The Gold in the Gilded Age will reassess one of the most embarrassing periods in US history, whose robber barons were, in fact, a second generation of American revolutionaries, and whose presidents were more than the dimly recalled non-entities whom the writer Thomas Wolfe called The Lost Americans.
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Lecture 9: Theodore Roosevelt and the Bully Pulpit
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Synopsis: Theodore Roosevelt was the first "modern" president and a great communicator who transformed public expectations even as he and his colorful family entertained the nation. After TR it was no longer enough for a president to be a purely administrative figure -- he must be an advocate as well, a master of media manipulation, and an agenda setter. The glories and pitfalls of "strong" presidential leadership can be largely attributed to TR.
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Lecture 10: Woodrow Wilson and the Law of Unintended Consequences
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Synopsis: Woodrow Wilson was the professor turned politician, whose first term set records in enactment of progressive legislation, and whose second term turned into a train wreck of embarrassments. He coined a term for America's view of its special calling on the world stage - Wilsonianism - which to this day is a powerful factor in US foreign policy in Iraq and other places around the globe.
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Lecture 11: Calvin, We Hardly Knew Ye
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Synopsis: The single most underrated American president -- if you're a Libertarian. Or just a minimalist, suspicious of government's good intentions. The Funniest, too.
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Lecture 12: The Odd Couple: Hoover & Truman
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Synopsis: An unlikely pairing, forged in the aftermath of World War II, that developed into the closest, and most historically significant,presidential friendship since Adams and Jefferson.
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Lecture 13: Roosevelt & Reagan: Eternal Optimists
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Synopsis: Discarding conventional labels, Smith looks at the twentieth century's most important presidents, one from the left and one from the right, and discover the many things they had in common.
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Lecture 14: Gerald Ford of Michigan
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Synopsis: Nearly a year after his passing, Richard Norton Smith remembers President Gerald Ford against the backdrop, and within the culture, that shaped his character, values, and outlook. First and always, he was a son of the Middle West. An intimate portrait, with previously untold stories and reflections on his historical standing.
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