However, in recent decades, many historians have begun to fundamentally reassess the conventional views of Harding's historical record in office.

"[8] John Dean views the works of White and Adams "remarkably unbalanced and unfair accounts, exaggerating the negative, assigning responsibility to Harding for all wrongs, and denying him credit for anything done right.

"[10] Historian Robert K. Murray's The Harding Era (1969) took a more positive view of the president, and put him in the context of his times.

"[12] In 2004, Dean, noted for his involvement in another presidential scandal, Watergate, wrote the Harding volume in "The American Presidents" series of short biographies, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Coffey considered that book the most revisionist to date, and faults Dean for glossing over some unfavorable episodes in Harding's life, like his silence during the 1914 United States Senate election in Ohio when his opponent, Timothy S. Hogan, was being attacked for his faith.

However, in recent decades, some authors and historians have begun to fundamentally reassess the conventional views of Harding's historical record in office.

[17][18] In The Spoils of War (2016), Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith place Harding first in a combined ranking of fewest wartime deaths and highest annual per capita income growth during each president's time in office.

If Harding can rightly claim the achievements of a Hughes in State or a Hoover in Commerce, he must also shoulder responsibility for a Daugherty in Justice and a Fall in Interior.

[21] Murray wrote that, "in establishing the political philosophy and program for an entire decade, [Harding's] 882 days in office were more significant than all but a few similar short periods in the nation's existence.

"[21] Authors Marcus Raskin and Robert Spero, in 2007, also believed that Harding was underrated, and admired Harding's quest for world peace after World War I and his successful naval disarmament among strongly armed nations, including France, Britain, and Japan.

[23] In some cases, it is the very ubiquity and conventionality of the criticisms of Harding that has impelled some historians to take a closer look and seek a more objective reassessment.

As I read about him, it began to dawn on me that possibly these tributes were not entirely undeserved … As I delved further into the Harding archives, I kept finding evidence of a more positive side to his administration.

[25] Similarly, the 2015 Washington Post article, "If we weren't so obsessed with Warren G. Harding's sex life, we'd realize he was a pretty good president",[26] stated, in part: Our obsession, past and present, with Harding's sex life has obscured the truth: This man was a good president.

Among his more important accomplishments was stabilizing the country and the world after the catastrophic war in Europe, a true Armageddon that left most "civilized" nations in economic, political and social chaos.

... Over time Harding freed hundreds of political prisoners, repairing the severe wounds wrought by the Espionage and Sedition acts of 1917 and 1918.

Most notably, as illustrated by this chart based on OMB data, he presided over a period of remarkable spending discipline.

And his agenda of less government and lower tax rates helped bring about a quick end to a massive economic downturn (unlike the big-government policies of Hoover and Roosevelt, which deepened and lengthened the Great Depression).

Unemployment came down to an estimated 2 to 4 percent... Harding was a smashing success in a historically important role as the anti-Wilson: He restored a classically liberal, rights-focused, limited government, and deserves immense credit for the economic boom that kicked off in his first year and continued throughout the rest of the 1920s....[28] An article by Jim Powell in 2009 titled Not‐So‐Great Depression: Which U.S. president ranks as America's greatest depression fighter?

An Ohio senator when he was elected president in 1920, he followed the much praised Woodrow Wilson— who had brought America into World War I, built up huge federal bureaucracies, imprisoned dissenters, and incurred $25 billion of debt... One of Harding's campaign slogans was "less government in business," and it served him well.

Harding embraced the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and called for tax cuts in his first message to Congress on April 12, 1921.