A review by musicsaves
Martin Van Buren: The American Presidents Series: The 8th President, 1837-1841 by Ted Widmer

4.0

FIRST LINE REVIEW: "In June 1854, a small, elderly man rented rooms overlooking the central plaza of Sorrento, the ancient city jutting into the Mediterranean from a peninsula south of Naples." That's a very long way from the humble beginning Van Buren faced in his childhood and retirement home of Kinderhook, NY. And his journey there was long and fraught with many disappointments. This is a slim biography, but still an insightful one for helping understand one of the "invisible" presidents. It's really pretty depressing, actually, to see how a confluence of unfortunate events can so destructively crush a legacy. Perhaps he deserved better. Hard to know for sure, but this bio raises interesting questions around that point.