Hoover

An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times

By: Kenneth Whyte

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone

"An exemplary biography—exhaustively researched, fair-minded and easy to read. It can nestle on the same shelf as David McCullough’s Truman, a high compliment indeed." —The Wall Street Journal

The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the twentieth century—a wholly original account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, his battle against the Great Depression, and their own history.

An impoverished orphan who built a fortune. A great humanitarian. A president elected in a landslide and then resoundingly defeated four years later. Arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism, Herbert Hoover lived one of the most extraordinary American lives of the twentieth century. Yet however astonishing, his accomplishments are often eclipsed by the perception that Hoover was inept and heartless in the face of the Great Depression.

Now, Kenneth Whyte vividly recreates Hoover’s rich and dramatic life in all its complex glory. He follows Hoover through his Iowa boyhood, his cutthroat business career, his brilliant rescue of millions of lives during World War I and the 1927 Mississippi floods, his misconstrued presidency, his defeat at the hands of a ruthless Franklin Roosevelt, his devastating years in the political wilderness, his return to grace as Truman's emissary to help European refugees after World War II, and his final vindication in the days of Kennedy's "New Frontier." Ultimately, Whyte brings to light Hoover’s complexities and contradictions—his modesty and ambition, his ruthlessness and extreme generosity—as well as his profound political legacy.

Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times is the epic, poignant story of the deprived boy who, through force of will, made himself the most accomplished figure in the land, and who experienced a range of achievements and failures unmatched by any American of his, or perhaps any, era. Here, for the first time, is the definitive biography that fully captures the colossal scale of Hoover’s momentous life and volatile times.

A new appreciation.

From a rather uninformed but negative opinion of Hoover this book has completely changed my appreciation for this complex and highly accomplished man.

Extraordinary accounting of the President’s life

Respectful. Encompassing birth to his passing. Not with out criticism but seemed unbiased reporting. A very under recognized president in my opinion gets a fair hearing.

Great history of a lesser known president

Hoover obviously is known for the great depression but this book does a great job of giving a much wider look. Hoover led one of the more impressive lives of any president. The author does a good job giving a fair look at the good and bad from Hoovers life. Long read but it was interesting and informative.

A Great Humanitarian

I was curious about Herbert Hoover. I had grown up with my parents' opinion, that Hoover was the cause of the Great Depression. My dad referred to it as "the Hoover Depression", and if we were out of a necessity, he would say my mom was "Hooverizing".
Hoover was a great humanitarian, who was responsible for feeding millions of people in Europe after WWI. He also saved millions of children in the Soviet Union, when the crops failed. So many other times he organized food deliveries to starving people.
Hoover, like most people, was a complicated person. I personally do not believe he deserved the blame for the Great Depression nor the ill-treatment by FDR.
I highly recommend this book. My husband, who is not a history major, enjoyed it, too.

A nice man who didn't get it.

Hoover was a good man but he was reactionary and did not have any real foresight. By the time he realized America was in deep trouble from the great depression (starving people, no jobs, severe hardships) it was too late. He just kept saying Americans should pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get on with life. He rejected job programs, stimulus of most kinds until about 3 years into the depression. By then it was too late to save his presidency. Americans were desperate and voted for Roosevelt by a landslide and Hoover's feelings were hurt. He never forgot it. He lived a long life and in 1955 gave an impassioned speech about how Beatniks were destroying America,

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