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American Presidents | total of 8 items found in your search |
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Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversilty, 1822 - 1865
Brooks D. Simpson
Houghton Mifflin 2000 0395659949 / 9780395659946 First Hardcover New New
Here is a superb first in a projected two-volume study of the Union general and president. Serving as neither his subject's advocate nor his prosecutor, Arizona State University historian Simpson provides an eminently informed and finely balanced portrait of Ulysses S. Grant as man, husband, failed entrepreneur and shrewd, victorious general. Simpson (Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868) uses carefully excavated facts and anecdotes to reveal an individual far more complex than the caricature (drunken, barbarous in battle, corrupt when given opportunity) handed down to us by popular history. At the same time, Simpson does not gloss over Grant's shortcomings. Although a fan of the general's, Simpson is not in the business of writing apologetics, and therein lies his strength. Appropriately, Simpson dispenses with Grant's pre-Civil War life in the first 70 pages of his book, devoting the balance to his name-making and often controversial Civil War exploits. Most importantly, Simpson shows in Grant the vital trait he shares with every great warrior-leader before or since: a hatred of warfare. War, said Grant, "is at all times a sad and cruel business... and nothing but imperative duty could induce me to engage in its work or witness its horrors." History Book Cub main selection.
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Ulysses S. Grant (Grant: A Biography), historian William McFeely portrayed the soldier-statesman-president as a liar, a battlefield butcher of men, and a racist. Sixteen years later, Geoffrey Perret's hagiographic work (Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier and President, LJ 7/97) cast Grant as an ethical, intelligent, and spiritually introspective man ill served by back-biting staff officers, incompetent field commanders, and self-aggrandizing political hacks. This balanced contribution from Simpson (The Reconstruction Presidents, LJ 6/15/98) offers a finely nuanced view of Grant as sometimes petty and vindictive, stubborn, partial to favorites, politically expedient, and willing to sacrifice principle in pursuit of results but nevertheless always the determined foe of slavery and Southern nationalism. The author dramatically traces his "triumph over adversity" theme through Grant's adolescence in Ohio, tenure at the Military Academy, tour of duty in the Mexican War, failed business ventures and exasperating domestic life, and grueling ascendancy to the pinnacle of the Union army and closes with his painful attempts to forestall Radical Republican legislation aimed at punishing the postwar South. The author's excellent afterword persuasively explains the complexities and seeming contradictions of his subject's character and genius. An auspicious beginning to Simpson's planned two-volume study; highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.
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82.03 USD
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A World Transformed
George Bush
Knopf 1998 0679432485 / 9780679432487 Stated First Hardcover New New
George Bush's term as President occurred during a watershed era for international politics. In fact, so many major events took place on his watch that he limits A World Transformed to the years 1989 to 1991, in which the massacre at Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the Persian Gulf War held center stage. Though some will claim that this narrow focus only confirms Bush's disproportionate interest in foreign rather than domestic affairs, the events in question certainly warrant a book of their own. Perhaps anticipating such a response, Bush hints in the introduction that further memoirs are in the works.
A World Transformed is divided into three voices: Bush, his coauthor and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and the collective "we" of the National Security Council (supplying vital background information and a wider view of the events discussed). Overall, this formula works--Bush's tone is particularly warm and chatty, his narrative peppered with telling anecdotes that reveal the personalities and emotions behind the bold-faced headlines. His remarks are mostly to the point, gratifyingly lucid, and often compelling. Diary excerpts supply many memorable insights, if few truly shocking revelations. For instance, at the end of the Persian Gulf War, he wrote: "Isn't it a marvelous thing that this little country will be liberated.... The big news, of course, is this high performance of our troops--the wonderful job they've done; the conviction that we're right and the others are wrong. We're doing something decent, and we're doing something good; and Vietnam will soon be behind us.... It's surprising how much I dwell on the end of the Vietnam syndrome."
In describing his interaction with other world leaders, Bush emerges as a skillful negotiator and statesman, fostering a personal, first-name-basis style of diplomacy that proved especially effective with Mikhail Gorbachev and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Scowcroft, the consummate support man and workaholic, focuses more on the nuts and bolts, balancing out their presentation of how crises are dealt with at the highest level.
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72.91 USD
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Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady : Richard Nixon vs Helen Gahagan Douglas-Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950
Greg Mitchel
Random House 1998 0679416218 / 9780679416210 First Hardcover New New
America in the 1950s may seem like a halcyon time, but Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady, a lively account of the 1950 race for the Senate in California, shows just how raucous and divided the nation was as it entered the decade. Two prominent members of Congress, a former actress and ardent liberal, Helen Gahagan Douglas, and future president Richard M. Nixon, waged a vicious and often dirty fight in the election. The entire nation paid attention as Nixon smeared Douglas as a Communist, claiming she was "pink right down to her underwear." Greg Mitchell provides a well-written account of the race that would forever define Nixon in the minds of many. Nixon's opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas, was doomed as a liberal and a woman in a political time unfriendly to both. Nixon was aided by friendly newspaper editors, the deft use of television, skill in splitting the electorate by class and gender, and venal ploys such as anti-Semitic allusions to Douglas's husband, actor Melvyn Douglas. Douglas survived her defeat and became a respected speaker for women's issues until her death in 1980. This evocative political morality tale is strongly recommended for public libraries
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82.03 USD
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American Presidential Families
Macmillan
Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc. Oct-93 0028973054 / 9780028973050 Hardcover Fine - As New
Out of Print and very rare to find in new condition - dust jacket preserved and protected with Brodart, non-adhesive jacket coverAbout this title: From the owners of Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, this book provides complete family histories of all U.S. presidents. Entries begin with a biography, tracing each president's life and political achievements. An essay on family follows, describing each president's upbringing and family members. Genealogical entries show ancestors, descendants, and blood ties to historical figures.
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255.29 USD
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Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President
Perret, Geoffrey
Random House Publishing Group Aug-97 0679447660 / 9780679447665 Hardcover Fine - As New
**** STATED FIRST EDITION **** - Out of Print and rare to find a new, first edition copyUlysses S. Grant worked with Red Cloud, chief of the Lakota Sioux, to create an arguably more humane Indian policy--"no president could have done more," argues Geoffrey Perret, whose reassessment of Grant as a politician is his biography's finest achievement. Not that he scants his subject's military genius; the relentless, aggressive campaigns that won the Civil War are skillfully outlined and analyzed. Grant emerges in this nuanced portrait as a quintessential American: he is depicted as a restless rover perpetually in search of "movement, drama, adventure." Firmly situated in his time, he nonetheless seems a strikingly modern man.
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136.74 USD
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George Washington: A Life
Randall, Willard Sterne
Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated Nov-97 0805027793 / 9780805027792 Hardcover Fine - As New
STATED FIRST EDITION - 1997 Henry Holt PublicationTo most people George Washington is a mysterious icon, the man on the dollar who we know about mostly because of mythical exploits. This substantial biography of the first American president succeeds in portraying Washington as a man with a keen mind and sharp temper who overcame great adversity. In particular, George Washington is valuable for its telling of the story of Washington's early life. How the frontier surveyor took to a military career, failed at it, and eventually redeemed himself as a great leader of the American Revolution is an engrossing story that may be surprising to many who think they know about Washington, but mostly know just the myths.
Randall, whose previous biographies (e.g., Benedict Arnold: Patriot, LJ 7/90; Thomas Jefferson: A Life, LJ 8/93) have enjoyed commercial success, has now joined the long list of biographers of Washington. Because the ground of the great Virginian's life has been so thoroughly plowed over the two centuries since his death, any new attempt should either bring the reader new insights into Washington's character or be so well written as to new-mint the familiar. This account does neither. Randall's writing is lively enough, but he has not rethought Washington's life in any imaginative way, preferring to write off the top of other biographies. In at least one case, his unattributed reliance on another's work borders on the extreme. In addition, there are enough careless errors that scholars will find the book unreliable. For instance, Patrick Henry did not represent Augusta County, Georgia; McGillivray's visit to New York took place well after Washington's contretemps with the Senate, not during; and at the Battle of Long Island, Randall has Washington commenting to Lord Stirling on the men's bravery, though Stirling had in fact been taken prisoner.
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113.95 USD
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8 |
Coolidge: An American Enigma
Robert Sobel
Regnery Publishing 1998 0895264102 / 9780895264107 First Hardcover New Near-Fine
First Edition Copy In this inflated revisionist biography, Sobel seeks to overturn the image of Calvin Coolidge as a taciturn, do-nothing president. He portrays his subject as an embodiment of the ethos of a vanished America, a pragmatic politician who espoused a philosophy of a passive executive branch. Although Coolidge took no actions to promote race relations, never spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan and passed a restrictive immigration bill that singled out Japanese for exclusion from entering the U.S., the 30th president is presented here as a champion of civil rights because, in Sobel's verdict, his public utterances in support of black Americans were outspoken and liberal-minded. There is some unintentionally hilarious understatment: "Coolidge's humor was not of the kind that causes belly laughs." And the author brings William Allen White to the president's defense by quoting him as saying, "Coolidge... was not dumb." In this lively but unpersuasive reappraisal, Sobel (Dangerous Dreamers) is mostly preaching to the converted. His broader themeAa refutation of the negative view of the Republican 1920s Harding-Coolidge-Hoover trio as a dismal interregnum between Wilson and FDRAis likewise debatable. Coolidge's presidency, despite Sobel's intentions, comes off as a wasteland of missed opportunities.
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72.91 USD
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