Imagine a country in which strikes by public-sector unions occupied the public square; where foreign policy wandered aimlessly as America disentangled itself from wars abroad and a potential civil war on its southern border; where racial and ethnic groups jostled for political influence; where a war on illicit substances led to violence in its cities; where technology was dramatically changing how mankind communicated and moved about—and where the educated harbored increasing contempt for the philosophic underpinnings of our republic. That country, the America of the 1920s, looked a lot like America today. One would think, then, that the President who successfully navigated these challenges, Calvin Coolidge, might be esteemed today. Instead, Coolidge’s record is little known, the result of efforts by both the left and right to distort his legacy. Why Coolidge Matters revisits the record of our most underrated president, examining Coolidge’s views on governance, public sector unions, education, race, immigration, and foreign policy. Most importantly, Why Coolidge Matters explains what lessons Coolidge—the last president to pay down the national debt—can offer the limited government movement in the post-industrial age.

Coolidge is one of the nation's most underrated presidents. Coolidge's thought on topics like public sector unions, education, race, governance, immigration, and foreign policy requires restoration if the constitutional, industrial republic is to be preserved in the modern age.

Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, delivers a brilliant and provocative reexamination of America’s thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge, and the decade of unparalleled growth that the nation enjoyed under his leadership. In this riveting biography, Shlaes traces Coolidge’s improbable rise from a tiny town in New England to a youth so unpopular he was shut out of college fraternities at Amherst College up through Massachusetts politics. After a divisive period of government excess and corruption, Coolidge restored national trust in Washington and achieved what few other peacetime presidents have: He left office with a federal budget smaller than the one he inherited. A man of calm discipline, he lived by example, renting half of a two-family house for his entire political career rather than compromise his political work by taking on debt. Renowned as a throwback, Coolidge was in fact strikingly modern—an advocate of women’s suffrage and a radio pioneer. At once a revision of man and economics, Coolidge gestures to the country we once were and reminds us of qualities we had forgotten and can use today.

The austere president who presided over the Roaring Twenties and whose conservatism masked an innovative approach to national leadership He was known as "Silent Cal." Buttoned up and tight-lipped, Calvin Coolidge seemed out of place as the leader of a nation plunging headlong into the modern era. His six years in office were a time of flappers, speakeasies, and a stock market boom, but his focus was on cutting taxes, balancing the federal budget, and promoting corporate productivity. "The chief business of the American people is business," he famously said. But there is more to Coolidge than the stern capitalist scold. He was the progenitor of a conservatism that would flourish later in the century and a true innovator in the use of public relations and media. Coolidge worked with the top PR men of his day and seized on the rising technologies of newsreels and radio to bring the presidency into the lives of ordinary Americans—a path that led directly to FDR's "fireside chats" and the expert use of television by Kennedy and Reagan. At a time of great upheaval, Coolidge embodied the ambivalence that many of his countrymen felt. America kept "cool with Coolidge," and he returned the favor.

"It was my hope to produce a book that would not only have some historical interest, but would be useful for those in public life, in educational work, in preparation for citizen­ship, and would be especially a book that parents would wish their children to read." —President Calvin Coolidge on his autobiography Today Americans of all backgrounds are on the hunt for a different politi­cal model. In fact, such a model awaits them, if only they turn their eyes to their own past . . . to America's thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge's masterful autobiography offers urgent lessons for our age of exploding debt, increasingly centralized power, and fierce partisan division. This expanded and annotated volume, edited by Coolidge biographer Amity Shlaes and authorized by the Coolidge family, is the definitive edition of the text that presidential historian Craig Fehrman calls "the forgotten classic of presidential writing." To read this volume is to understand the tragic extent to which historians underrate President Coolidge. The Coolidge who emerges in these pages is a model of character, principle, and humility—rare qualities in Washington, then as now. A man of great faith, Coolidge told Americans: "Men do not make laws. They do but discover them." Although he emphasized economics, Coolidge insisted on the importance of "things of the spirit." At the height of his popularity, he chose not to run again when his reelection was all but assured. In this autobiography, Coolidge explains his mindset: "It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man." For all his modesty, Coolidge left an expansive legacy—one we would do well to study today. Shlaes and ­coeditor ­Matthew Denhart draw out the lessons from Coolidge's life and career in an enlightening introduction and annotations to Coolidge's text. To aid Coolidge scholars young and old, the editors have also assembled nearly three dozen photographs, several of Coolidge's greatest speeches, a timeline of Coolidge's life, and afterwords by former Vermont governor James H. Douglas and two of Coolidge's great-grandchildren, Jennifer Coolidge Harville and Christopher Coolidge Jeter. This autobiography combats the myths about one of our most misunderstood presidents. It also shows us how much we still have to learn from Calvin Coolidge.

Cuomo argues that in today's charged political climate, Abraham Lincoln--founding member of the Republican Party--would be hard-pressed to recognize the issues in the contemporary GOP.

Some leaders fundamentally alter the status quo whilst others guide quietly. Most leadership books emphasise specific rules, but Tom Cronin and Michael Genovese see leadership as filled with paradox. Leadership Matters offers a different view of leadership - one that builds community and responds creatively to new situations. Cronin and Genovese argue that leadership is about more than just charisma and set leaders on to a different path - to unleash the power of paradox.