Accidental Presidents

 Book 52 of my 2022 Reading Challenge

Accidental Presidents

by Jared Cohen

4 stars

Published in 2019, Accidental Presidents covers the 8 vice-presidents who became president upon the death in office of their predecessor and how they shaped history.  They are John Tyler (William Henry Harrison), Millard Fillmore (Zachery Taylor), Andrew Johnson (Abraham Lincoln), Chester Arthur (James Garfield), Theodore Roosevelt (William McKinley), Calvin Coolidge (Warren Harding), and Lyndon B. Johnson (John F. Kennedy).  

It was well-written and interesting.  I learned a lot.

I didn't realize the succession order wasn't officially made until 1947.  If John Tyler hadn't made the decision to succeed Harrison and there had been new elections (either by the people or by Congress), our entire system would be different.  I also didn't realize there was a vice-president that died in office (Garret Hobart in 1899); vice-presidents really do become lost in history.

Although Gerald Ford was briefly mentioned, his circumstances and challenges were obviously different than those mentioned above.

I can tell this was a passion project for the author; the bibliography of his sources was 18 pages of small print!

Quote from the Book

"Eight times a Vice President has become president upon the death of his predecessor - history altered by a heartbeat. This is the story of how these eight men, neither the voters' nor their party's choice, dealt with that power and changed history, for better or worse."