William Howard Taft: The American Presidents Series: The 27th President, 1909-1913 (American Presidents by Jeffrey RosenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Taft is a very interesting president for many many reasons. It's too bad we only know him for being overweight (at least that's all I knew him for).
He never really wanted to be president, but always wished to be chief justice of the supreme court. So when he was elected president he approached it from a judicial (read: constitutional) point of view. He didn't care at all about politics or popularity. In a way this served him very badly. Just as generals who become president and refuse to partake in party politics tend to perform badly as a result, the same could probably be said of judges. Interesting also to see how a president who wasn't automatically campaigning for a second term wasn't praised more for it.
I guess being in between Roosevelt and Wilson doesn't help, but he is definitely someone worth reading up about.
Of course, he finally did make it to chief justice, and was a much better chief justice than president.
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