The first year of a new president’s first term is always a crucible. But often it’s only in hindsight, within the carefully considered pages of an authoritative presidential biography, that the full measure of that first year can be taken. In this new series on the best presidential biographies, Miller Center presidential scholars and experts recommend the ones most worth reading.

Journalist Jon Meacham, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his Andrew Jackson biography, recently published the most comprehensive volume to date on George H. W. Bush's life and times. Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, penned with the cooperation of the Bush family, benefits from access granted to an audio diary that the president kept throughout his one term in the Oval Office. Given that Bush did not produce a memoir, Meacham's use of this rich, real-time archive adds texture to the otherwise well-known record of the Bush presidency. For a briefer and more scholarly treatment of the 41st president, Timothy Naftali's contribution to the Times Books' American Presidents Series, George H. W. Bush, is unsurpassed. Naftali's credentials as a Cold War historian illuminate the crucial role of Bush and his first-rate foreign policy team in the Soviet Union's demise. Yet Naftali is clear-eyed about the less admirable Bush alliance with Lee Atwater, the modern master of political dark arts. The Miller Center has partnered with Cornell University Press on a presidential oral history series, which includes 41: Inside the Presidency of George H W. Bush. Edited by Michael Nelson and me, the book contains essays by historians and political scientists on Bush's domestic and foreign policy. Chapters on the limited impact of his Gulf War triumph, how Bush's brand of conservatism deviated from Reagan's, his costly budget compromise with congressional Democrats, and the president's ill health in 1992 explain his failure to achieve a second term. Finally, George W. Bush in 2014 published a tribute to his dad, 41: Portrait of My Father, that is notable for drawing comparisons and contrasts between the presidencies of only the second father-son duo to occupy the White House. Eulogistic to be sure, it is nevertheless well-written and serves as the memoir Bush 41 never wrote, while providing insight into his son's world view.