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Byline: Ted Widmer MAKING THE PRESIDENCY: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic, by Lindsay M. Chervinsky Given the excitement around Tim Walz and JD Vance, it is [...]

In “The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt,” Edward F. O’Keefe explores the informal kitchen cabinet that helped Roosevelt, the 26th president, speak softly and carry a big stick. THE LOVES OF [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer In 'Lincoln's God,' Joshua Zeitz examines the 16th president's personal and idiosyncratic brand of Christianity. LINCOLN'S GOD: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation, by Joshua [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer By John Avlon Simon & Schuster. 354 pp. $30. - - - The past few years have not been easy for the totemic figures of American history, [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer Americans have grown used to the Abraham Lincoln of black and white photographs, reproduced in the halftones of our history books. The images remain essential - has [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer On this Presidents' Day, falling three days after his birth anniversary, Abraham Lincoln will be remembered in the usual way, as the preserver of the Union, the [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer For Print Use Only. 'I bring to the work an honest heart,' Abraham Lincoln said in Harrisburg, Pa., on the day before his all-night train ride into [...]

In 1861, a pro-Southern mob wanted to block the tallying of electoral votes for Lincoln. So did some congressmen. In the confusion that followed Wednesday's desecration of the Capitol, it [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer There are many parallels between 1860 and 2020. Let's hope there aren't too many. Long before Covid-19, Alexis de Tocqueville described a presidential election as a form [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer Will President Donald Trump go down as the worst president in history? That question is being asked a lot, by scholars and columnists, and the result is [...]

Trump calls it 'a joke.' Washington and Lincoln would disagree. It would be difficult to think of a time when we have depended more on the United States Postal Service. [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer It has been a long time since the winter of 1920, but the old fault lines are still visible. A year ago, The Times introduced a series [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer At the end of 1919, Woodrow Wilson still wanted the region to decide its future. Britain and France had other ideas. As 1919 came to a close, [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer Thanksgiving arrives just when we need it - our most unifying holiday at one of the most divisive moments in recent American history. In general, the holiday [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer President Trump plans to speak at a spectacle of his own devising at the Lincoln Memorial on the Fourth of July. Democrats may dread the specter of [...]

Byline: Ted WidmerThe State of the Union has always been more about theater than substance. By the next day, almost no one can remember what was said. The speech is [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer President Trump plans to speak at a spectacle of his own devising at the Lincoln Memorial on the Fourth of July. Democrats may dread the specter of [...]

From the Treaty of Versailles to Prohibition, the events of that year shaped America, and the world, for a century to come. In his essay “The Crack-Up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald [...]

Byline: TED WIDMER On Nov. 11, 1918, a delegation of German representatives, not entirely sure that they represented their crumbling government, made their way through the forest of Compiègne toward [...]

Byline: Ted WidmerThe State of the Union has always been more about theater than substance. By the next day, almost no one can remember what was said. The speech is [...]

Byline: TED WIDMER A few hours earlier, it was far from certain that Tommie Smith and John Carlos would be on the medal stand at all. Smith, the favorite to [...]

Byline: TED WIDMER On the evening of Aug. 8, 1968, Richard Nixon delivered his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination, which he had won the same day. James Reston of [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer Donald Trump used to torture Jeb Bush with the phrase 'low-energy' when the younger Bush seemed like the presidential heir apparent. But on Tuesday night, he seemed [...]

Byline: Ted Widmer 'From time to time,' the Constitution tells us, the president shall give to Congress 'information' relating to 'the State of the Union.' On the surface, that seems [...]

THE Summer of Love began with a burst of flower power. On June 1, 1967, the Beatles released ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,'' and the horticulture was nearly as [...]

Byline: TED WIDMER THE Summer of Love began with a burst of flower power. On June 1, 1967, the Beatles released 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' and the horticulture [...]

Third parties don't fit cleanly into the simple political narrative most of us have in our heads of red versus blue, and two parties battling it out, Super Bowl-style. Yet [...]

Byline: TED WIDMER Immigration is not the easiest issue to debate. It stokes emotions about 'homelands' and invasions, as we have seen all summer, both in the Republican presidential contest [...]

Byline: TED WIDMER When did the Civil War end? Many have answered never. As late as 1949, in an address at Harvard, the writer Ralph Ellison said that the war [...]