Introduction : they had it all, but then what happened?
George Washington : the first president, the first former president
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson : friends, enemies, and ultimately friends
James Madison and James Monroe : the last of the Virginia dynasty
John Quincy Adams : Old Man Eloquent
The Jacksonians : Jefferson's heirs and beyond
A bizarre historical footnote : Zachary Taylor
Doughfaces : Northern men with Southern principles
Reconstruction presidents : the aftermath of war
Presidents of the "Gilded Age"
Theodore Roosevelt : the Bull Moose
Between the Roosevelts : retiring into a changed world
James Earl Carter, Jr. : Nobel laureate
From Reagan through Bush to Clinton : a study in contrasts
Some concluding thoughts.
