Richard Nixon

The Life

De: John A. Farrell

Narrado por: Dan Woren

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • From a prize-winning biographer comes the defining portrait of a man who led America in a time of turmoil and left us a darker age. We live today, John A. Farrell shows, in a world Richard Nixon made.

At the end of WWII, navy lieutenant “Nick” Nixon returned from the Pacific and set 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 gave way to unapologetic ruthlessness. The story of that transformation is the stunning overture to John A. Farrell’s magisterial biography of the president who came to embody postwar American resentment and division.
Within four years of his first victory, Nixon was a U.S. senator; in six, the vice president of the United States of America. “Few came so far, so fast, and so alone,” Farrell writes. Nixon’s sins as a candidate were legion; and in one unlawful secret plot, as Farrell reveals here, Nixon acted to prolong the Vietnam War for his own political purposes. Finally elected president in 1969, Nixon packed his staff with bright young men who devised forward-thinking reforms addressing health care, welfare, civil rights, and protection of the environment. It was a fine legacy, but Nixon cared little for it. He aspired to make his mark on the world stage instead, and his 1972 opening to China was the first great crack in the Cold War.
Nixon had another legacy, too: an America divided and polarized. He was elected to end the war in Vietnam, but his bombing of Cambodia and Laos enraged the antiwar movement. It was Nixon who launched the McCarthy era, who played white against black with a “southern strategy,” and spurred the Silent Majority to despise and distrust the country’s elites. Ever insecure and increasingly paranoid, he persuaded Americans to gnaw, as he did, on grievances—and to look at one another as enemies. Finally, in August 1974, after two years of the mesmerizing intrigue and scandal of Watergate, Nixon became the only president to resign in disgrace.
Richard Nixon is a gripping and unsparing portrayal of our darkest president. Meticulously researched, brilliantly crafted, and offering fresh revelations, it will be hailed as a master work.

A Decent Summary but No Great Insights

This book is a perfectly fine summary of the life and career of Richard Nixon. It is pretty even-handed in its treatment, noting and highlighting both his accomplishments and his terrible flaws. But if you are looking into deeper insights into what made the man, one of the most strange and fascinating characters in 20th century American politics, tick, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by Robert Caro's incredible multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, in which you truly get to know the man and all the many people who surrounded him, what he wanted, why he behaved the way he did, what motivated him, etc. Yes this is just one volume and Caro's, possibly one of the best biographies of all time, is 4 volumes with a 5th on the way, but I was really hoping for more.

And if we are going to compare the two biographies, the different treatment of the 1957 civil rights bill is, to say the least, interesting. To hear Farrell tell it, Nixon was a driving force behind the bill and Johnson did everything in his power to stop it. To hear Caro (who is often extremely critical of Johnson) tell it, Nixon and Eisenhower cared very little about the bill and Johnson's many compromises, manipulations, and cloakroom deals are the only reason the bill passed the Senate. Needless to say, Caro's telling is far more convincing.

Anyway, if you are looking for a decent telling of the facts of Nixon's life, this book will serve.

SO DIFFERENT, SO ALIKE

“So different and so alike” is what comes to mind in listening to John Farrell’s biography of Richard Nixon. President Nixon is characterized as thin skinned, vindictive, and dissembling; a description echoed by today’s President.

Nixon and Trump appear both misogynistic, and anti-intellectual.  Both viscerally react to perceived slights.  Both have morally corrupt views of society.  Both make comments reflecting ethnic racism with reprehensible private comments.  Both attack news publishers; particularly the Washington Post and New York Times.

However, Farrell shows Nixon to be clearly unlike Trump.  Nixon understands political and public reality while Trump clings to a skewed business and personal reality. Nixon avoids unfavorable publicity while Trump manufactures it.  Nixon exemplifies international, geo-political, and professional foreign policy while Trump follows an amateurish parochial isolationist foreign policy. Nixon is surreptitiously thuggish, while Trump is outwardly thuggish.  Nixon operates from a perspective of power-hungry self-interest, while Trump operates from "monied" self-interest.

Ending Vietnam at the expense of South Vietnamese is a mixed blessing but Nixon stopped the carnage.  Opening China to the world is a great American accomplishment which history fairly attributes to Nixon and Kissinger.  Only time will tell if Trump is more than what he seems.

Well Balanced and informative about the person of Nixon

This is a very nice presentation. The narrator is superb and the flow of the book smooth and interesting. No dull history here. This will be a good listen several times over. In fact, I am writing this review and getting ready to start my third time listening in the course of a couple of years. I pick up something more with each reading. Not too heavy, judgmental, or political.

interesting insights into Nixon the man.

sad to think somebody in charge can be so twisted. this book does a great job of telling a story. without being leaning too far in any One Direction. for those interested in that time oh, this is a must.

Benk

The book itself is great. The narrator, however, is not so great, in my opinion. While he has a nice enough voice, his cadence is very bouncy (best way I can describe it), and frequently unsuited to the material he is reading. Because of this choppy and inconsistent delivery, the story ends up with a very poor flow. There is virtually no recognition of the moment or gravity of particular sentences. Every sentence (or, really, each isolated fragment of sentences) is read in the same manner. As other reviewers have noted, this often includes the mispronunciation of words (and not particularly complex words, either). Ultimately, I found his delivery to be far too distracting. You might not.

I should also note that I listened to this book immediately after the Robert Caro LBJ series. The narrator of those books, Grover Gardner, is the best in the business as far as I am concerned. This might be making the Nixon narrator seem worse than he actually is.