Why Foreign Leaders Read Trump's 1990 <em>Playboy</em> Interview
In preparation for their White House visits, both Japanese and German officials studied the infamous feature for clues into the president’s thinking on world affairs.
To understand the thinking of American presidents, historians, contemporaries, and political rivals, have often sought out the texts that most influenced them. George Washington, for example, was known to love Cato: A Tragedy, Joseph Addison’s civics-heavy play about the man who tried and failed to block Caesar’s path to tyranny. He loved the play so much that he forced demoralized troops at Valley Forge to view. Calvin Coolidge was apparently so enamored of Cicero that he after regularly reading him. Herbert Hoover, who grew up poor and , was, unsurprisingly, a big fan of Dickens’ .
