Robert Dallek-HOW DID WE GET HERE?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump

Renowned New York Times bestselling historian and presidential scholar Robert Dallek believes that President Trump is ignorant of the histories of the presidencies that came before 1993. “It was only with the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama presidencies,” Dallek says, “that he saw vulnerabilities he hoped to exploit to become president.” But while Trump’s 2016 election has presented extreme new challenges to American republican ideals, the triumphs and failures of some of the great modern presidents that came before in some ways cleared the path to Donald Trump. In HOW DID WE GET HERE?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump (Harper), Dallek offers an incisive look at ten twentieth century administrations that changed the presidency—for good or ill—and played a role in bringing us to our present moment.

Robert Dallek is the author of Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 and Nixon and Kissinger, among other books. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, and Vanity Fair. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Society of American Historians, for which he served as president in 2004-2005. He lives in Washington, D.C.