It’s 10 days till Christmas, and still plenty of time to order books as gifts. Cosimo’s selection of unusual and hard-to-find classics make excellent — and unexpected — presents for the book lovers on your list… or as a treat for yourself. Today: books for presidential buffs and readers of American history.

Barack Obama isn’t the first incoming American president to have been a published author before taking the Oval Office. Before he served as the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921, and before he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, Thomas Woodrow Wilson was a lawyer and an academic: a university professor of history and politics, and president of Princeton University. It was during his tenure at Princeton that he penned the classic five-volume History of the Ameican People. The volumes include:

Vol. I: The Swarming of the English
Wilson sets the stage for the European settlement of North America, as the Elizabethan age of discovery gives way to a new era of commerce and organization. [hardcover] [paperback]

Vol. II: Colonies and Nation
Wilson tells the story of the British settlers in America in the 18th century, from common endeavors in trade and commerce by turns unified and divided the disparate colonies through to the Revolution. [hardcover] [paperback]

Vol. III: The Founding of the Government
Wilson delves into the expansion of the United States in the early 19th century in the western frontiers, and tells the story of the founding and development of the federal government in the first quarter century of its existenc. [hardcover] [paperback]

Vol. IV: Critical Changes and Civil War
Wilson discusses the “Democratic revolution” of the 1820s and 1830s and delves deep into the tumultuous years of the Civil War. [hardcover] [paperback]

Vol. V: Reunion and Nationalization
Wilson brings the story of the nation up to the moment of its 1902 publication. [hardcover] [paperback]

This beautiful replica of the 1902 first edition features all the original halftone illustrations. Students of Wilson and of the ever-changing lens through which history is told and retold will find this an enlightening and illuminating work.

If you’re looking for a stocking stuffer for the American-history buff, look no further than George Washington’s Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior. Before he was an American Founding Father and the new nation’s first president, George Washington was an excruciatingly correct child with a passion for propriety. At the age of 14, he copied out 110 rules for elegant deportment from a work created by Jesuits in the 16th century as a guide for young gentleman of quality, and through these rules, which he took greatly to heart, we can see the beginnings of the man Washington would become taking shape. Though many of the rules deal with matters of etiquette — such as whom should rise for whom in mixed company — many others concern far deeper matters that touch on personal philosophies about judgment, honor, success, and conscience. As a peek into the manners of a bygone age, this is an intriguing work. As a peek into a great man in his formative years, this is an extraordinary one.

(And by the way, though they’re not Cosimo books, Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, Dreams from My Father, and Change We Can Believe In make great gifts, too!)

Cosimo book are also available at Amazon.com and other online booksellers. Order through Amazon, and get it in time with FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25 placed through December 17. (See the complete holiday shipping guide at Amazon.)