Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-310) and index

Monument man : on George Washington's transformation from mortal man to immortal icon -- Well-timed exits : on the postmortem fortunes (and misfortunes) of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, and Andrew Johnson -- The first patient : on James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Zachary Taylor, and the doctors who keep presidents alive (and occasionally make them worse) -- Farewell, Mr. President : on William Henry Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon, and how the presidential funeral was born -- Death trips : on the posthumous travels of James Polk, James Monroe, John Tyler, and Abraham Lincoln -- His good name : on William McKinley, Ronald Reagan, and Calvin Coolidge, and the large (and small) ways presidents are remembered -- Robots and sphinxes : on Lyndon Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Chester Arthur, and America's Presidential libraries -- Unintended legacies : on William Taft, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, and how presidents' reputations change over time -- Eternal flame : on John F. Kennedy, the City of Dallas, and what ties them together every November 22 -- The rest of the set : on the many types of presidential obscurity and mediocrity, with Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, and Warren Harding -- Family reunion : on the Adamses, the Harrison, and presidential descendants