William Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency, 1909-1913, by Michael L. Bromley, 2003, ISBN 0­7864­ 1475­8.Hardbound, 447 pages, 7 by 10 inches, 86 photographs. Published by McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, 1­800­253­2187, www.mcfarlandpub.com. $49.95 (plus $4.00 shipping).

Bless William Howard Taft. This historian has fallen in love with the first President who ordered an automobile while residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the fellow who created the first garage for the White House, the proselytizer who championed the automobile's cause with elegance and enthusiasm. Michael Bromley made me do it.

The awareness of most of us to Taft's place in automobile history heretofore probably hasn't extended much further than seeing photos of the man after he had settled his ample girth into the tonneau of, say, a mighty Pierce 66. A formidable motorcar was required to enshroud WHT comfortably. The Pierce-Arrow was a Presidential favorite, more so was the White Steamer. Mrs. Taft had a Baker Electric.

This is simply a wonderful book. Its scholarship is impeccable and the tale told is fascinating. Among the details one can read about is the contretemps ensuing over the White House query to the White Company about the acquisition of a new steamer at a "fixed expense," maintenance included. White offered a new car every year for a $3,500.00 annual fee. Pierce-Arrow's Colonel Clifton, well aware of the public relations bonanza of the Presidential imprimatur, was already leasing the White House a 36 H.P. for $500.00. When a better price was asked for the steamer, Walter White wouldn't budge. The exchange of correspondence among the principals in this drama is delicious and exhaustively footnoted.

Except for the fact that this book is so much fun to read, it could be a PhD dissertation. In addition to scrupulous citations, William Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency boasts exemplary appendices that include the text of Taft's 1911 speech to the Automobile Club of America, an annotated inventory of the White House garage during the Taft years as well as the stables and stablehands(!), political chronologies, industrial statistics, glossaries of terms and names, a huge bibliography and comprehensive index. The author could have "defended" this piece of scholarship in a New York minute.

Setting the scene of the book amidst the cultural, social and political milieu of the era adds another dimension. Michael Bromley obviously is fond of his subject and argues persuasively that, despite the ineffectual label history has given him, Taft was a "hero to progress." Certainly the automobile is in his debt.

• Beverly Rae Kimes