In “A Short History of the United States,” which came out in 2008, he wrote that the Bush administration had been “itching to start a war with Iraq” and faulted the conflict as futile, poorly managed and expensive. Remini himself was willing to take sides. He was openly unhappy with the recent divisions in Congress and wrote often about the days when deals among enemies could be reached, including the pre-Civil War history “At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union,” published in 2010. Remini also wrote biographies of President John Quincy Adams, the celebrated orator Daniel Webster and Mormon founder Joseph Smith.

Billington to write a Congressional history, “The House,” for which Remini interviewed legislators and sat in on Congressional proceedings, was published in 2006. Three years earlier, Remini had been asked by Librarian of Congress James H. Dennis Hastert, a fellow Illinois resident and then-Speaker, appointed Remini historian of the House in 2005. Benjamin Walker, star of the Broadway musical “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” has said he read Remini as part of his research. Learned, readable and productive, Remini wrote and co-authored more than 20 books, starting in 1959 with “Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party.” On Jackson alone, he completed at least 10 books, including an influential trilogy of which the finale won the National Book Award in 1984. Remini was a professor emeritus at the school. Remini, who retired from the House in 2010, died March 28 at Evanston Hospital after suffering a stroke, the University of Illinois at Chicago announced in a news release.

The House by Robert V. Remini