-Robert W. Merry’s book, A Country of Vast Design, has been touted by many as one of the best lesser-known-president biographies around today. Sean Wilentz, in his New York Times review, explains how Merry does a great job of presenting the significant contributions that Polk made:
He makes an especially strong case that Polk, for all his slyness, truly believed that enlarging the country was a nationalist enterprise that should overcome sectional divisions, not deepen them.
-They Might Be Giants wrote a song about our 11th president which was aptly titled James K. Polk. Rolling Stone even classified it as the tenth weirdest shout-out song:
[Youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGCuDDAPggw"]
-If you’ve ever been to Tennessee make sure you travel to the greatest home in the United States. No, not Graceland: The James K. Polk Ancestral Home in Columbia. Just make sure you remember your teacher’s packet.
-If you’ve got a New Yorker subscription–or a really good magnifying glass–you can view an article penned in 1936 trying to find a way to raise Polk’s stature among his contemporaries.
-Polk knew how to rock the mullet:
-And although I wouldn’t classify him as such, some might think he is one of our “prettiest presidents.”
-Sometimes I wish that we still lived in the days where presidents only vetoed three bills.
-However, I must say that I do wish that political cartoons were still this awesome.
-It’s not the longest list I’ve seen (you may remember the one for Washington), but the list of places named after James K. Polk is not too shabby.
Previous Presidents:
1. George Washington
2. John Adams
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. James Madison
5. James Monroe
6. John Quincy Adams
7. Andrew Jackson
8. Martin Van Buren
9. William Henry Harrison
10. John Tyler
