Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty Updated Edition

"In the intriguing book, Recarving Rushmore, Ivan Eland reassesses the record of all U.S. Presidents based on the constitutional principles that each swore to uphold. While conventional accounts glorify the flagrant misdeeds of the ‘Imperial Presidency,’ this insightful and crucial book provides an inspiring vision for both conservatives and liberals on the crucial need to rein in White House power and restore peace, prosperity and liberty."
—Ron Paul, former U.S. Congressman and candidate for President of the United States.

“Recarving Rushmore is colorful, entertaining, and profound. Ivan Eland shatters the grand illusion that great presidents are those who wage war or deprive people of their liberty, either here or abroad. The new ‘gold standard’ for measuring presidential performance, this book upends what we ‘know’ about ‘Great’ presidents and will challenge your view of political history, one president at a time.”
—Jonathan Bean, Professor of History, Southern Illinois University

“Ivan Eland takes on what many may consider an almost impossible and certainly thankless job of arriving at some reasonable metric for fairly assessing presidential performance into some type of framework to classify presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama. . . . Certainly, not everyone will agree with the author’s scoring system or how he placed presidents into their categories; however, the book has value in that it covers in synopsis format selected major high points and low points of each president’s administration in office. There is also valuable information on each president such as term dates, party affiliation, born and died dates, the name of each president’s spouse, the Alma Mater of each president, their occupation before occupying the office and each president’s religion. This information is followed by selected details in how each president performed on the Constitutional values of Peace, Prosperity and Liberty which may not be complete or be the sole characteristic of each president’s performance in the times during which he served. However, this information is strong enough to launch lively reflection and discussion among the thoughtful and reflective. In the final analysis, is it imperative or even important that U.S. presidents be evaluated on a selected metric of performance; and, would agreement ever be reached nationally on how that evaluation metric would be designed and applied?”
—White House Studies

“Eland engagingly shows why the conventional wisdom on the American presidency is all wrong and why presidents like Van Buren, Arthur, and Harding in fact ably advanced the nation’s interest, while iconic names like Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, and Wilson caused serious harm. Recarving Rushmore is must reading.”
—Richard K. Vedder, Distinguished Professor of Economics and Faculty Associate, Contemporary History Institute, Ohio University

“Judging presidents by a deceptively simple metric—their impact on peace, prosperity, and liberty—leads Ivan Eland in to reach radical conclusions about the rankings of presidents. Whether you agree that Coolidge was a good president and FDR a bad one, you’ll never again glibly think to yourself that it’s obvious which presidents are good and bad. It isn’t—and Eland shows us why.”
—Richard Shenkman, Editor, History News Network; author, Presidential Ambition and Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History

“Recarving Rushmore calls into question our whole conception of presidential greatness. In this well-written book, Eland offers readers insightful surveys of every president from Washington to Obama. Along the way, he makes a compelling case that many of the so-called ‘greats’ were not so great after all when it came to preserving liberty, peace, and prosperity. Readers will never see the presidency the same way again.”
—David T. Beito, Professor of History, University of Alabama

“The majority view, that Lincoln was the best and Buchanan was the worst, results from shortcomings in the way US historians rate presidents, says Ivan Eland, author of Recarving Rushmore. Eland thinks presidential ratings are too easily swayed by charisma, activism and service during a crisis. In his book, he ranks the White House occupants according to how much they fulfilled the aims of the Founding Fathers to bring peace, prosperity and liberty to the country.”
—BBC News Magazine

“Recarving Rushmore is a fine book, a thought-provoking study on national leadership in the United States from the perspective of a free society. His rankings and rationales will provide provocative material for discussions of leadership where individual liberty is a priority. Avoiding the usual popularity contest of presidential rankings, Eland weighs practical realities of policies and accomplishments to come up with rankings that are sometimes surprising and always interesting.”
—T. Hunt Tooley, Professor of History, Austin College

“According to American historians, the best presidents are the ones who get us into the biggest wars, impose the most interventionist economic policies, and trample civil liberties by expanding executive power beyond what the Constitution permits. The more European-style fascism the better seems to be their criterion. That’s why Lincoln and FDR are always at the top of their lists. In Recarving Rushmore Ivan Eland makes a novel proposal: Why not rank presidents according to the traditional American values of peace, prosperity and liberty? Read this important new book and find out why John Tyler may be America’s greatest president!”
—Thomas DiLorenzo, Professor of Economics, Loyola College in Maryland; author of The Real Lincoln and Hamilton’s Curse

“Recarving Rushmore stands as a much-needed corrective to the history of America we are all taught in our schools. We are propagandized to adulate all American presidents simply by virtue of the office they held, regardless of what their record might have been. Indeed, it appears that the worse they trampled on civil liberties the higher the regard in which they are held. Dr. Eland has provided a far more accurate account of the actions of these men (and they are indeed men, not gods), pointing out the manner in which most abused their power and oppressed the nation. Historians who are dedicated to the truth are indebted to him for his efforts.”
—Ronald Hamowy, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Alberta, Canada

“By focusing on peace, prosperity, and liberty, Recarving Rushmore moves us miles closer to a proper evaluation of America’s presidents—especially those of the 20th century—than the hallowed (but misleading) Schlesinger poll of prominent historians. Eland makes an eloquent and persuasive case, for example, that Harding and Coolidge were better presidents than were FDR and LBJ.”
—Burton W. Folsom, Charles F. Kline Chair in History, Hillsdale College; author, New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

“Of the four presidents exalted glory on Mount Rushmore, only George Washington deserves the honor, writes Ivan Eland, whose intriguing new book is appropriately titled Recarving Rushmore. The author argues that Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt was overrated by historians and scholars; Thomas Jefferson hypocritically violated his lofty rhetoric of liberty; and Abraham Lincoln provoked a civil war that achieved far less than believed. Mr. Eland’s book profiles and ranks every U.S. president on the merits, including his oath to uphold the Constitution. Surprisingly, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter are anointed the two best modern presidents, and Bill Clinton is declared in some respects more conservative than George W. Bush.”
—Washington Times

“Recarving Rushmore is a ‘very good’ book of concise historical assessments of each U.S. presidential administration’s domestic, defense and foreign policies regarding peace, national prosperity, and individual liberty. This book is ‘better’ in terms of the depth of the analysis of each administration’s role in an evolving process of shaping the legacy of prior administrations for their successors. And the book is ‘best’ in the ways it provides insights into how a libertarian perspective on these issues is meaningful for the broader policy debates within U.S. society.”
—Edward A. Olsen, Emeritus Professor of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School