As the former president of Bolthouse Farms, Scott Laporta led a fresh vegetable and premium refrigerated beverage and salad dressing business with annual sales of more than $800 million. Outside of Scott Laporta’s professional life, he enjoys reading and is particularly fond of presidential biographies.
Over the decades, biographies detailing the lives of former presidents have become standard fare for history and politics buffs alike, but here are three crucial offerings every American should consider reading.
1. Thomas Jefferson & Sally Hemings: An American Controversy - This biographical argument, penned by Annette Gordon-Reed, persuasively plead the case for the third president fathering multiple children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. The book threw historians and Jefferson scholars for a loop, and its assertions were later backed up by DNA evidence, confirming that Hemings’ descendants were, in fact, fathered by Thomas Jefferson.
2. Lincoln - There are so many Lincoln biographies written to this day that awards exist specifically to honor authors who write about this pivotal president. Harvard historian David Herbert Donald’s “Lincoln” sets itself apart from the pack by aiming to demythologize the 16th president, examining his stumbles and failures as much as his notable successes.
3. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - The first of Edmund Morris’ three-part biography of Theodore Roosevelt is considered by the New York Times to be “one of the best biographies of the 20th century.” In its official review of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, the reviewer praises it as a “sweeping narrative” and “shrewd examination” of the 26th president. The book’s influence was so great that President Reagan asked Edmund Morris to write his own biography.
