Tevi Troy’s new book is more than just an enter­tain­ing chron­i­cle of what Pres­i­dents have read, watched and lis­tened to. It offers insights into their habits of mind and how these habits have shaped – and been shaped by – pop­u­lar culture.

What Jef­fer­son Read, Ike Watched and Oba­ma Tweet­ed (Reg­n­ery) is a work whose read­abil­i­ty masks what must have been a tedious task of schol­ar­ship. Troy’s light style moves the read­er effort­less­ly along, accom­pa­ny­ing weighty insights with deli­cious anec­dotes. How U.S. Grant, then in the ter­mi­nal stages of throat can­cer, teamed with Mark Twain to write his mem­oirs in order to pro­vide for his fam­i­ly after his death. (If only Break­ing Bad’s Wal­ter White had thought of that.) How William McKin­ley, while being treat­ed for the gun­shot wound that would claim his life, asked for a news­pa­per to learn how his recent — and last — speech had been received. Al Jolson’s cam­paign song for War­ren G. Hard­ing (“We think the country’s ready for anoth­er man like Ted­dy”). Ger­ald Ford arrang­ing for Queen Eliz­a­beth II to be enter­tained by the Cap’n and Tenille’s ren­di­tion of “Muskrat Love.” (Tenille recalled that “a stone-faced Hen­ry Kissinger sat four feet from her dur­ing the per­for­mance, arms fold­ed impas­sive­ly across his chest.”) Willie Nelson’s adven­ture dur­ing his vis­it to Pres­i­dent Carter, where he claims to have smoked “a big fat Austin tor­pe­do” on the White House roof.

Like a true base­ball fan, Troy also has leav­ened his work with sta­tis­tics. Jef­fer­son col­lect­ed 6,487 books, which formed the core of the Library of Con­gress; Woodrow Wil­son attend­ed 225 plays while in office; Jim­my Carter watched 480 movies dur­ing his lone White House term; George W. Bush read 186 books between 2006 and 2008, includ­ing 95 in 2006 alone, 58 of which were non-fic­tion. Har­ry Tru­man was the last Pres­i­dent who did not earn a bachelor’s degree, George H.W. Bush the last with­out a grad­u­ate degree, Rea­gan the last with­out a degree from Har­vard or Yale.

Troy is an unapolo­getic devo­tee of the Founders and the book sug­gests that the sto­ry of the presidency’s inter­ac­tion with the broad­er cul­ture is one of decline, as the title of his Intro­duc­tion – “From Cicero to Snoo­ki” – sug­gests. The Founders were devot­ed to their books, devour­ing every­thing from the Clas­sics to his­to­ry, phi­los­o­phy and the law. Their read­ing ren­dered them:

“Remark­ably well-pre­pared for the task that his­to­ry pre­sent­ed them. They were immersed in the time­less ques­tions of what makes a just soci­ety and how men are best gov­erned. As Leo Strauss observed, the Founders com­bined the great tra­di­tions of Athens and Jerusalem, of rea­son and revelation…The Founders viewed read­ing not mere­ly as enter­tain­ment but as a path to wis­dom, virtue and toward a just society.”

They con­sid­ered read­ing essen­tial to the republic’s sur­vival. Troy quotes Jefferson’s warn­ing: “If a nation expects to be igno­rant and free, in a state of civ­i­liza­tion, it expects what nev­er was and nev­er will be.”

George Wash­ing­ton, though not a vora­cious read­er when mea­sured against the likes of Jef­fer­son and Adams, main­tained a library of 900 books, a fig­ure that grows more impres­sive when one con­sid­ers that a book like Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations cost the equiv­a­lent of what an iPad costs today.

The Founders led a nation of read­ers. Lit­er­a­cy rates in Amer­i­ca, Troy observes, were high­er than those in Europe at the time. Thomas Paine’s polit­i­cal tract, Com­mon Sense, sold 100,000 copies, one for every twen­ty-five res­i­dents, which would trans­late to 12.5 mil­lion sales in the present day.

Even in the Founder’s time, how­ev­er, read­ing wasn’t the only venue of cul­ture. The­ater was also among the pop­u­lar pre­oc­cu­pa­tions, one that grew in impor­tance dur­ing the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry as cul­tur­al and legal restric­tions were relaxed. The­ater was chang­ing and with it the broad­er cul­ture. The Jack­son pres­i­den­cy reflect­ed this cul­tur­al change. The shift from the eru­dite John Quin­cy Adams to the pop­ulist Andrew Jack­son marked a shift in the par­a­digm of Amer­i­can leaders.

“After Jack­son, pres­i­dents would not have to be well-read or well-edu­cat­ed, but they would need to have the com­mon touch … In the wake of the Jack­son­ian ascen­dance, strug­gles between enlight­ened intel­lec­tu­al lead­er­ship and an under­stand­ing of the com­mon man would firm­ly be decid­ed in favor of the com­mon man.”

Not that read­ing was dead. Har­ri­et Beech­er Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cab­in not only inspired the flag­ging Abo­li­tion move­ment but gave Amer­i­ca lit­er­ary cred­i­bil­i­ty in Europe. Lincoln’s leg­endary appetite for books lift­ed him from pover­ty and obscu­ri­ty to the White House. But books alone were not respon­si­ble for Lin­col­n’s suc­cess. In post-Jack­son­ian Amer­i­ca, he had to “strad­dle the world of the com­mon man and that of the enlight­ened leader.”

Lin­coln suc­ceed­ed spec­tac­u­lar­ly at a task that proved more than many who fol­lowed him could han­dle. Ted­dy Roo­sevelt, a stu­dent of Lin­coln, also fared well. “One of the last pres­i­dents to obtain infor­ma­tion pri­mar­i­ly through read­ing,” Troy tells us, Roo­sevelt joined his love of books – or what he called his read­ing “dis­ease” – with a love of the out­doors. The for­mer inspired his mete­oric rise to the White House; the lat­ter earned him the pop­u­lar sup­port that made that rise possible.

The progress of com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies like radio and the movies fueled the emer­gence of celebri­ties and ren­dered the pres­i­den­cy “more approach­able but less dig­ni­fied.” As pres­i­dents revealed their pref­er­ences for movies or songs, they took on the “role as chief pitch­man, inten­tion­al or not, in an increas­ing­ly com­mer­cial culture.”

And while Ted­dy Roo­sevelt suc­ceed­ed in this role as well, it was his cousin Franklin who “proved the orig­i­nal mas­ter of this new pop cul­ture, and none of his suc­ces­sors has excelled him.” Radio made FDR, whose use of the medi­um became a mod­el for Ronald Rea­gan. He also cul­ti­vat­ed celebri­ty endorse­ments, appear­ing at the LA Olympic Sta­di­um dur­ing his 1932 cam­paign with Char­lie Chap­lin, Lau­rel and Hardy, Clark Gable and Boris Karloff. More than any of his pre­de­ces­sors, FDR was respon­si­ble for “the trans­for­ma­tion of the pres­i­dent into a media star.”

Some were more com­fort­able with star­dom than oth­ers. Tru­man and LBJ were decid­ed­ly uncom­fort­able and Eisen­how­er seemed almost com­plete­ly unin­ter­est­ed in cul­ti­vat­ing celebri­ty support.

Democ­rats have fared far bet­ter than Repub­li­cans at woo­ing celebri­ties. Per­haps none sur­passed the awk­ward­ness of Nixon, who received Elvis Pres­ley at the White House, grant­i­ng his request to become a “Fed­er­al Agent-at-Large.” Elvis, accord­ing to Nixon aide Egil “Bud” Krogh, arrived “dressed in a pur­ple jump­suit and a white shirt open to the navel with a big gold chain and thick-rimmed sun­glass­es.” He com­plained to the Pres­i­dent that “the Bea­t­les came over here and made a lot of mon­ey and said some un-Amer­i­can things.” A befud­dled Nixon asked Krogh, “What’s this about the Beatles?”

Even Ronald Rea­gan, the Repub­li­can most adept at using the media to his polit­i­cal advan­tage, had his embar­rass­ing moments. Bruce Spring­steen rebuked him for using his “Born in the USA” as a GOP pep-ral­ly anthem. The song’s upbeat tem­po belies its dark­ly pes­simistic lyrics (“the first kick I took is when I hit the ground”) that were entire­ly con­trary to Reagan’s “morn­ing in Amer­i­ca” theme. George H.W. Bush fared no bet­ter with the vapid “Don’t Wor­ry, Be Hap­py,” afford­ing Bob­by McFer­rin the oppor­tu­ni­ty to announce his oppo­si­tion to the Repub­li­can standard-bearer.

Bill Clin­ton, on the oth­er hand, basked in celebri­ty glo­ry. His choice of the insipid 70s hit, “Don’t Stop Think­ing About Tomor­row,” as his cam­paign theme song won him the enthu­si­as­tic embrace of Fleet­wood Mac, who reunit­ed to per­form the num­ber at Clinton’s inau­gur­al ball. Troy notes that, aside from the enter­tain­ment world’s strong pref­er­ence for Democ­rats over Repub­li­cans, Clin­ton suc­ceed­ed in appro­pri­at­ing the tune because he – unlike Nixon, Rea­gan and Bush – knew and gen­uine­ly liked the music he was exploit­ing. Amer­i­cans can spot a phony.

Repub­li­cans are decid­ed­ly more com­fort­able with movies than pop­u­lar music, despite Hollywood’s rejec­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive ide­ol­o­gy (except when it comes to their own prop­er­ty rights). Troy tells us that Ike loved West­erns (as did Stal­in and Khrushchev), that Nixon was an avid movie watch­er whose favorite was Pat­ton, and that Ronald Rea­gan, with some excep­tions, pre­ferred films made dur­ing his act­ing career to those of the 1980s.

Kennedy and John­son, on the oth­er hand, had lit­tle patience for films. Kennedy “pre­ferred liv­ing like James Bond to watch­ing him on the screen,” accord­ing to Troy, list­ing Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mar­lene Diet­rich, Jayne Mans­field, Gene Tier­ney, Kim Novak, Audrey Hep­burn, Sophia Loren, and Ang­ie Dick­in­son among his con­quests. The less sex­u­al­ly prodi­gious John­son favored movies about him­self. Troy tells us that though he rarely watched movies, he saw A President’s Coun­try, a gov­ern­ment doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Gre­go­ry Peck, a dozen times.

Clin­ton pro­claimed that he loved movies “almost to the point of com­pul­sion.” Troy observes that Clinton’s polit­i­cal suc­cess “stemmed from his seri­ous engage­ment with pop­u­lar culture.”

“He under­stood that movies had an escapist qual­i­ty but that they also allowed Amer­i­ca to present an ide­al­ized ver­sion of itself to the world. Pres­i­dents, who must present an ide­al­ized ver­sion of them­selves, have suc­ceed­ed when uti­liz­ing movies to con­vey their best char­ac­ter­is­tics to the vot­ing public.”

Clinton’s obses­sion with movies is matched by Obama’s obses­sion with tele­vi­sion. Cit­ing Obama’s auto­bi­ogra­phies, Troy says that the future Pres­i­dent spent his youth in “non­stop tele­vi­sion view­ing,” a habit that he brought to the White House. The Pres­i­dent loves ESPN (Troy quotes him as say­ing, “I basi­cal­ly floss my teeth and watch Sports­Cen­ter”) and all things sports, but also lists Home­land, Mad Men, Board­walk Empire, Entourage and The Wire among his pas­sions. Politico’s Glenn Thrush has observed that Oba­ma “seeks shal­low­er waters, espe­cial­ly in times of cri­sis,” using tele­vi­sion as “com­fort food.” His pre­ferred shows, Troy writes, “are dark and edgy – decid­ed­ly not fam­i­ly fare – so he usu­al­ly watch­es them alone.”

And though Obama’s lit­er­ary con­sump­tion in the White House is con­sid­er­ably less than that of his pre­de­ces­sor, he is well-read, his pol­i­tics and ide­ol­o­gy shaped by books. Indeed, despite all the cul­tur­al changes since the days of the Founders, our pres­i­dents still find time to read.

“Not only are most mod­ern Amer­i­can pres­i­dents read­ers, but they tend to read a lot and to read thought­ful­ly. … Read­ing makes pres­i­dents more seri­ous in an era where lead­er­ship often debas­es itself. If there’s any­thing pres­i­den­tial left about the pres­i­den­cy, we may have the pres­i­dents’ read­ing to thank.”

Read­ing is essen­tial to strik­ing the right bal­ance between grav­i­tas and acces­si­bil­i­ty, Troy argues.

“Lead­ers must prove they are ‘of the peo­ple’ by dis­play­ing their con­ver­sance with pop­u­lar cul­ture while main­tain­ing an appear­ance of intel­lec­tu­al achieve­ment. These goals can be mutu­al­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry, and pres­i­dents must walk a care­ful line between flaunt­ing their intel­lec­tu­al worth and relat­ing to the populace.”

Like Mac­chi­aveli, Troy includes some max­ims for lead­ers on how best to tread that care­ful line: under­stand the top shows, best­sellers and block­busters, but don’t com­ment on them; sub­tly com­mu­ni­cate what you read and watch; if you crit­i­cize artists or celebri­ties, you empow­er them to crit­i­cize you; politi­cians who live by the rules of celebri­ty die by the rules of celebri­ty; a Pres­i­dent can be cool for only so long; come­di­ans are more dan­ger­ous than pro­duc­ers or reporters.

And the max­im that per­haps best cap­tures the theme of Troy’s work: “Pop­u­lar cul­ture can help you get elect­ed. But read­ing is still king.”