BAPTISM BY FIRE: Eight Presidents Inaugurated in a Time of Crisis
By Mark K. Updegrove
Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's (NYP)

When our 44th president is inaugurated on January 20, 2009, he—or she—will take over a deeply divided nation facing several crises.  Almost immediately, the new chief executive will confront wrapping up the war in Iraq, winning the war in Afghanistan, protecting the American homeland from ongoing threats of terrorist attacks, and reversing the decline in U.S. influence aboard.  BAPTISM BY FIRE tells the stories of eight other U.S. presidents throughout history who inherited crises as they assumed the reins of power: George Washington as the first president of a new and fragile nation; Thomas Jefferson as the government divided into a two-party system; John Tyler as the first vice president to succeed to the presidency upon the death of an incumbent; Abraham Lincoln as civil war loomed; Franklin Roosevelt during the depths of the Great Depression; Harry Truman at the close of WW II and the dawn of the Cold War; John F. Kennedy at the Cold War’s height; and Gerald Ford, in the wake of Watergate, as the first unelected president.  This book addresses and answers the question: What lessons can our next president draw from these predecessors as he faces the first critical year of his or her presidency?

BAPTISM BY FIRE (75,000 words) will appeal to the large audience of American history and president buffs who reliably put books on presidents and the presidency on best-seller lists. But it will have equal appeal to readers who typically buy books on current affairs rather than history. Once the election of 2008 is over, their attention – indeed the attention of “the chattering classes” as a whole – will turn to questions of how the new president will address the foreign affairs crises he or she will inherit on January 20^th, 2009. Delivered in time for publication right after the November 2008 election, BAPTISM BY FIRE will play into the dominant media story next fall, as the President-elect prepares to take office in the face of unending, unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and America’s ebbing stature abroad. The book will stir media attention by offering a unique angle on the story, providing historical context on how U.S. presidents throughout history have dealt with unprecedented crises at the outset of their own administrations.

Mark Updegrove is the author of Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House (Lyons, October 2006, and excerpted in American Heritage), which won the Silver Award for the political science category in ForeWord Magazine’s  2006 “Book of the Year Awards” Net hardcover sales to date have been around 14,000.  The book received extensive media coverage including author appearances on ABC News, CNN, C-Span, Fox News, and NPR.  The Washington Post described Second Acts as “lively and highly readable review … entertaining and illuminating.” And The Philadelphia City Paper raved:  “Intelligent and entertaining. Updegrove writes like a historian with a season pass to The Daily Show.” Mark has served as publisher of Newsweek, president of Time Canada, and manager of Time’s Los Angeles office and has written articles for The Nation, Worth Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.