Presidential Doodles: Two Centuries of Scribbles, Scratches, Squiggles, and Scrawls from the Oval Office squiggles & scrawls from the Oval Office (Hardcover)

~ Cabinet Magazine (Author), David Greenberg (Author)
Key Phrases: presidential doodles, presidential library, White House, Cold War, Van Buren (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The ultimate gift book for any American history buff--the nation's Presidents, as they've never been seen before

What were the leaders of the free world really doing during all those meetings? As the creators of Cabinet magazine reveal here for the first time, they were doodling. Our Founding Fathers doodled, and so did Andrew Jackson. Benjamin Harrison accomplished almost nothing during his time in the White House, but he left behind some impressive doodles. During the twentieth century--as the federal bureaucracy grew and meetings got longer--the presidential doodle truly came into its own. Theodore Roosevelt doodled animals and children, while Dwight Eisenhower doodled weapons and self-portraits. FDR doodled gunboats, and JFK doodled sailboats. Ronald Reagan doodled cowboys and football players and lots of hearts for Nancy. The nation went wild for Herbert Hoover's doodles: A line of children's clothing was patterned on his geometric designs.

The creators of Cabinet magazine have spent years scouring archives and libraries across America. They have unearthed hundreds of presidential doodles, and here they present the finest examples of the genre. Historian David Greenberg sets these images in context and explains what they reveal about the inner lives of our commanders in chief. Are Kennedy's dominoes merely squiggles, or do they reflect deeper anxieties about the Cold War? Why did LBJ and his cabinet spend so much time doodling caricatures of one another? Smart, revealing, and hilarious--Presidential Doodles is the ideal gift for anyone interested in politics or history. And for anyone that doodles!

About the Author

Cabinet is a quarterly magazine of art and culture that confounds expectations of what is typically meant by the words "art," "culture," and "magazine." Like the seventeenth century cabinet of curiosities to which its name alludes, Cabinet focuses on the margins of culture. Playful and serious, exuberant and committed, Cabinet features the work of artists, writers, historians, scientists, and much more. Described by the New York Times as "voracious, omnivorous, and playful," Cabinet was named Best New Magazine of 2000 by Library Journal and Best Art and Culture Magazine for 2001 and 2003 by the New York Press. Writes the novelist Jonathan Ames: "Cabinet is absolutely unrelenting, issue after issue, in its madcap curiosity and creativity. There's a cerebral joy to the whole enterprise--a firm and happy belief that there is still much to be discovered and said about our world, our culture. Opening an issue of Cabinet is like finding out that Karl Marx is related to the Marx Brothers."

David Greenberg is a professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University, and the author of the award-winning Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image. A regular columnist for Slate, he has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs and other scholarly and popular publications. A former managing editor and acting editor of The New Republic, he holds a BA from Yale and a PhD in history from Columbia.

Paul Collins is the author of The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife of Thomas Paine, Sixpence House, Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck, and Not Even Wrong: A Father's Journey into the Lost History of Autism. He edits the Collins Library for McSweeney's Books, and his work has appeared in New Scientist, Lingua Franca, and the Village Voice. He lives in Iowa City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1St Edition edition (September 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465032664
• ISBN-13: 978-0465032662
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #618,245 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Signifying nothing?, December 17, 2006

By	Andrew S. Rogers (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In the Epilogue to "Presidential Doodles," Sasha Archibald and Sina Najafi of "Cabinet" magazine, chief researchers for this book, describe the technique they developed for examining microfilmed presidential documents for the occasional (and usually uncatalogued) doodle. Fast-forwarding through the documents at very high speed, words would blur but doodles would be easier to pick out. For all its effectiveness, though, the method had at least one drawback: "Suffice to say, despite having spent several years in presidential archives, we have learned little of substance about any of the presidents."

That sort of summarizes this book, too. While the introduction by presidential historian David Greenberg makes a number of interesting points and his text is generally well-informed and helpful, I don't think most readers are going to come away from "Presidential Doodles" with a dramatically-improved understanding of America's chief executives. Unless, that is, you accept the idea that Greenberg himself considers long-ago discredited, that doodles provide a Freudian glimpse inside the artist's deepest psyche.

But then, I don't imagine most readers will come to this book seeking psychoanalytical profiles of the presidents. Instead, this seems like one of a number of books in recent years offering "People" magazine-like "surprising facts" from "behind the scenes at the White House." Taken as part of that genre, "Presidential Doodles" is better than most, often interesting, and certainly entertaining.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting, January 5, 2007

By	Charles R. King "Amanda M Ruis" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is very interesting and allows the reader to see a side of our country's presidents that we normally wouldn't see.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great gift for that someone who has everything, January 9, 2007

By	M. Voight (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Great holiday or anytime gift for people hard to buy for. people interested in history or politics will especially enjoy it.