He reduced the federal budget during his time in office even as the economy grew, wages rose, tax rates fell, and unemployment dropped. Perhaps more than any other president, Coolidge understood that doing less could yield more. First as governor of Massachusetts then as president, Coolidge proved unafraid to take on the divisive issues of this crucial period: reining in public-sector unions, unrelentingly curtailing spending, and rejecting funding for new interest groups.

Coolidge's discipline and composure, Shlaes reveals, represented not weakness but strength. Coolidge is an eye-opening biography of the little-known president behind that era of remarkable growth and national optimism.Īlthough Coolidge was sometimes considered old-fashioned, he was the most modern of presidents, advancing not only the automobile trade but also aviation, through his spirited support of Charles Lindbergh. Shlaes shows that the mid-1920s was, in fact, a triumphant period that established our modern way of life: the nation electrified, Americans drove their first cars, and the federal deficit was replaced with a surplus. Now Amity Shlaes, the author known for her riveting, unexpected portrait of the 1930s, provides a similarly fresh look at the 1920s and its elusive president. History has remembered the decade in which he served as a frivolous, extravagant period predating the Great Depression. The shy Vermonter, nicknamed 'Silent Cal,' has long been dismissed as quiet and passive.

Calvin Coolidge, who served as president from 1923 to 1929, never rated highly in polls.

Coolidge by Amity Shlaes