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Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.
An Unfinished Life is the first authoritative single-volume life of John F. Kennedy to be written by a historian in nearly four decades. Drawing upon firsthand sources, freshly unearthed documents, and never-before-opened archives, prizewinning historian Robert Dallek reveals more than we ever knew about Jack Kennedy forever changing the way we think about his life, his presidency, and his legacy.
Richard Nixon opens with young navy lieutenant "Nick" Nixon returning from the Pacific and setting his cap at Congress, an idealistic dreamer seeking to build a better world. Yet amid the turns of that now legendary 1946 campaign, Nixon's finer attributes quickly gave way to unapologetic ruthlessness. It is a stunning overture to John A. Farrell's magisterial portrait of a man who embodied postwar American cynicism.
By the time Henry Kissinger was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become, according to a Gallup poll, the most admired person in America and one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world’s imagination. Yet Kissinger was also reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists. Kissinger explores the relationship between this complex man's personality and the foreign policy he pursued.
Based on rigorous research, hours of private interviews, and extraordinary access to Bush's diaries and to his family, Destiny and Power paints a vivid and affecting portrait of the distinctive American life of a man from the Greatest Generation: his childhood in Connecticut, his heroic service in World War II, his entry into the Texas oil business, and his storied rise in politics from congressman to UN ambassador to head of the CIA to 41st president of the United States.
A young woman leaves a party with a wealthy US senator. The next morning her body is discovered in his car at the bottom of a pond. This is the damning true story of the death of campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick and of the senator - a 37-year-old Senator Ted Kennedy - who left her trapped underwater while he returned to his hotel, slept, and made phone calls to associates. Leo Damore's 1988 national best seller, originally entitled Senatorial Privilege, almost didn't make it into print after its original publisher, Random House, judged it too explosive....
Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.
An Unfinished Life is the first authoritative single-volume life of John F. Kennedy to be written by a historian in nearly four decades. Drawing upon firsthand sources, freshly unearthed documents, and never-before-opened archives, prizewinning historian Robert Dallek reveals more than we ever knew about Jack Kennedy forever changing the way we think about his life, his presidency, and his legacy.
Richard Nixon opens with young navy lieutenant "Nick" Nixon returning from the Pacific and setting his cap at Congress, an idealistic dreamer seeking to build a better world. Yet amid the turns of that now legendary 1946 campaign, Nixon's finer attributes quickly gave way to unapologetic ruthlessness. It is a stunning overture to John A. Farrell's magisterial portrait of a man who embodied postwar American cynicism.
By the time Henry Kissinger was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become, according to a Gallup poll, the most admired person in America and one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world’s imagination. Yet Kissinger was also reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists. Kissinger explores the relationship between this complex man's personality and the foreign policy he pursued.
Based on rigorous research, hours of private interviews, and extraordinary access to Bush's diaries and to his family, Destiny and Power paints a vivid and affecting portrait of the distinctive American life of a man from the Greatest Generation: his childhood in Connecticut, his heroic service in World War II, his entry into the Texas oil business, and his storied rise in politics from congressman to UN ambassador to head of the CIA to 41st president of the United States.
A young woman leaves a party with a wealthy US senator. The next morning her body is discovered in his car at the bottom of a pond. This is the damning true story of the death of campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick and of the senator - a 37-year-old Senator Ted Kennedy - who left her trapped underwater while he returned to his hotel, slept, and made phone calls to associates. Leo Damore's 1988 national best seller, originally entitled Senatorial Privilege, almost didn't make it into print after its original publisher, Random House, judged it too explosive....
In a 2017 survey, presidential historians ranked Dwight D. Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, behind the perennial top four: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Teddy Roosevelt. Historian William Hitchcock shows that this high ranking is justified. Eisenhower's accomplishments were enormous and loom ever larger from the vantage point of our own tumultuous times.
Watergate forever changed American politics, and in light of the revelations about the NSA's widespread surveillance program, the scandal has taken on new significance. Yet remarkably, four decades after he was forced to resign, no one has told the full story of Nixon's involvement in Watergate.
Bob Woodward exposes one of the final pieces of the Richard Nixon puzzle in his new book, The Last of the President's Men. Woodward reveals the untold story of Alexander Butterfield, the Nixon aide who disclosed the secret White House taping system that changed history and led to Nixon's resignation.
Prize-winning historian Glen Jeansonne delves into the life of our most misunderstood president, offering up a surprising new portrait of Herbert Hoover - dismissing previous assumptions and revealing a political Progressive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt and the most resourceful American since Benjamin Franklin.
In Bush, Jean Edward Smith demonstrates that it was not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself who took personal control of foreign policy. Bush drew on his deep religious conviction that important foreign-policy decisions were simply a matter of good versus evil. Domestically, he overreacted to 9/11 and endangered Americans' civil liberties.
Secret Service agent Clint Hill brings history intimately and vividly to life as he reflects on his 17 years protecting the most powerful office in the nation. Hill walked alongside Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford, seeing them through a long, tumultuous era - the Cold War; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; the Vietnam War; Watergate; and the resignations of Spiro Agnew and Richard M. Nixon.
What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common? Aside from polarizing personalities, both served as chief of staff to the president of the United States - as did Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta, and a relative handful of others. The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers", wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS' agenda, and - most crucially - enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world.
Blind Ambition is an autobiographical account of a young lawyer who accelerated to the top of the Federal power structure to become Counsel to the President at 30 years of age, only to discover that when reaching the top, he had touched the bottom. Most striking in this chronicle is its honesty. Dean spares no one, including himself. But, as Time noted, Dean survived, despite the opposition of powerful foe, because he had no false story to protect and he had an amazing ability to recall the truth.
Doris Kearns Goodwin's classic life of Lyndon Johnson, who presided over the Great Society, the Vietnam War, and other defining moments in the tumultuous 1960s, is a monument in political biography. From the moment the author, then a young woman from Harvard, first encountered President Johnson at a White House dance in the spring of 1967, she became fascinated by the man - his character, his enormous energy and drive, and his manner of wielding these gifts in an endless pursuit of power.
From one of America's most talented historians and winner of a LA Times Book Prize comes a brilliant new account of Richard Nixon that reveals the riveting backstory to the red state/blue state resentments that divide our nation today. Told with urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America's turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency.
Based largely on documents declassified in only the last few years, One Man Against the World paints a devastating portrait of a tortured yet brilliant man who led the country largely according to a deep-seated insecurity and distrust of not only his cabinet and Congress but the American population at large. In riveting, tick-tock prose, Weiner illuminates how the Vietnam War and the Watergate controversy that brought about Nixon's demise were inextricably linked.
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow sows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
What was it really like to be Richard Nixon? Evan Thomas tackles this fascinating question by peeling back the layers of a man driven by a poignant mix of optimism and fear. The result is both insightful history and an astonishingly compelling psychological portrait of an anxious introvert who struggled to be a transformative statesman.
Any additional comments?
This is a very readable and surprisingly sympathetic bio of Nixon. More than most bios of RMN, Thomas devotes as much space to trying to unravel and understand Nixon’s complex and flawed character as he does to the historical record. Thankfully, he has the good sense to rely on the insights and comments (often humorous) of Nixon’s contemporaries in painting a picture of the Nixon personality rather than allowing himself to veer into psychobabble. After reading Being Nixon, I still can’t say I fully understand the man and his contradictions but this is probably as close as any bio will come. If I had a criticism it would be that like most presidential bios, scant time and space is devoted to the post-presidential life of Nixon though I was certainly eager for more details than what was given around, for instance, his reaction to being pardoned, how he dealt with his downfall and attempts to rehabilitate himself, and the Frost/Nixon interviews. Despite this, I quite enjoyed Being Nixon and recommend it.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful
I was in high school during Watergate and watched most of the Senate hearings. This book helped me to see Nixon as a person and to revisit that era through the eyes of an adult. At the time, I saw all of people in the Nixon administration as one monolithic block, but now I see that they were competing individuals with various motives, rivalries, and animosities. And I learned that Nixon foes such as Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee had personal animosities toward Nixon, whereas before I had seen them purely as altruistic heroes.
I was able to empathize with the early Nixon, in that I am also clumsy and sometimes feel uncertain in social situations. So having come to empathize with him, I was disappointed to learn how vindictive he became and how much he lost his moral compass as president. Yet I had always thought of him as villain, so I shouldn't have been surprised.
The book also helped me to appreciative Nixon's accomplishments as president, especially in foreign policy.
Bob Walter did an excellent job of capturing Nixon's cadence.
There were some funny parts that had me laughing out loud.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
I didn't like Nixon then and I still don't think there is much to like, but I learned a great deal from this book and I am the better for listening to it. A biography of Richard Nixon is a difficult hand to play but Evan Thomas has played it well. His points about the good side of Nixon are delivered gently like a fly cast before a fish not harshly like a street fight.
Superb.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
This is an honest well researched account of Nixon that wipes away the character depicted in the press and shows the agony and bafflement of a man who really did not understand himself.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Would you consider the audio edition of Being Nixon to be better than the print version?
Yes - the narrator has an effortless delivery, precise pronunciation, and a compelling delivery that makes this such a pleasure to hear.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Being Nixon?
When JFK and Lyndon Johnson stole the 1960 election from Nixon through voter fraud in Illinois and Texas -- and how Nixon took the high-road and did not appeal the election turnout through the courts, which he was encouraged to do by President Eisenhower and others who believed he was robbed.
Which scene was your favorite?
When Nixon was on the phone with Eisenhower, awaiting his answer on whether he was to continue as the VP running-mate, and he growled at Eisenhower that "there are times, such as these, when one needs to either shi* or get off the pot!".
Any additional comments?
This is a terrific story, that is more evenly-balanced and better researched than most typical books on Nixon (many of which are biased hatched-jobs, which this is not). It paints a well-rounded picture of this most compelling, complex, unusual, and effective President.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful
Noted presidential biographer Evan Thomas seeks to explain Nixon, rather than condemn him. If only Nixon had known himself half as well as Thomas understands him!
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Absolutely loved this book, very insightful about the complicated life and legacy of Richard Nixon. It shows a tender side to the usually grim and opportunistic side of Nixon. It is a fair book pointing out the bad but also the important good that Nixon did on the world stage. Mr Thomas seems to have a nice grasp on the public and private Nixon. The book has a nice flow and I enjoyed immensely.
Like all new books on a subject covered many times before, this book relies on those previous works. However, there is enough new stories, tidbits and insights to make it worth listening too. Overall, it casts Nixon in a rather sympathetic light, which is nice considering many similar works don't.
This helps the listener understand why each player, at each stage, did what he or she did. (As a kid, I was mystified by so much of this.) It lends color and three dimensions to participants, from Pat Nixon (nee Ryan) to Kissinger to Brezhnev (an unintentionally hilarious figure, IMO, especially alongside Nixon) and illuminates many scenes, from Georgetown dinner parties to Nixon's legendary displays of awkwardness, to his sharper calculations. I see these times as pivotal to our history, so I keep circling back there.
After listening to Ray Porter talk, Bob walter was difficult to listen to. 10/10 though.