William Howard Taft: A Great American Life

From an acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer comes a remarkable new look at the only man to serve as both president and chief justice of the United States.

The conventional wisdom is that William Howard Taft was a mediocre president, a man almost without political skills. Yet Taft’s modest, judicial approach to the presidency—he served as a state and then federal judge before entering the White House—looks quite extraordinary in retrospect. Admired by those on either side of the aisle for his genial personality and hearty chuckle, Taft spent his four years in office reducing tariffs, eliminating federal deficits, pursuing government efficiency, avoiding foreign wars, and honoring the Constitution.

Yet even Taft’s presidency would serve as merely a prelude to one of the greatest second acts in American history. More than any chief justice since John Marshall, Taft transformed the judicial branch, particularly as the principal proponent of the legislation that allowed the Supreme Court to begin choosing its cases—and thus to devote its energy entirely to deciding key constitutional and statutory issues.

A rigorously researched and elegant account of five decades of public service, William Howard Taft offers a bold reassessment of a forgotten great American.