Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

History As It Happens


Dec 16, 2021

This is the second episode in a two-part series, Let’s Rank the Presidents! Part one covered the most successful presidents in U.S. history. This episode will discuss the worst presidents (and those who fall somewhere in the middle). 

We've been lucky to have had some special leaders during difficult times. But our country has also elected some awful presidents, as well as men who might have succeeded if not for unforeseen crises which they wound up badly mismanaging. In this episode, scholars Jeremi Suri of the University of Texas at Austin and Jeffrey Engel of Southern Methodist University return to share their views on the presidents who occupy the bottom rungs of the White House rankings. They also discuss presidents who defy easy judgment, leaders who excelled in one area while catastrophically failing in another.