J's Pages

by John A. Farrell

Richard Nixon is the first president I remember from my childhood. Not well, mind you. I knew his name and, later, that he was involved in the Watergate scandal and resigned before he could be impeached. That was enough to establish him in my childish mind as a bad president.

This book didn't change my mind, even though my concept of a "bad president" has grown to be slightly more nuanced. Mr. Farrell presents a man who was willing to play dirty and sacrifice others to accomplish his goals. But also a man who wanted to do good for the American people and was willing to work hard for it. The tragedy is that Nixon's personal ambitions and prejudices would win out over his ideals. The story of Nixon's life, as presented here, is one that is very political. Once past World War II, the tale gives a inside picture of the political world, first in California and then in Washington D.C. Like many of the presidential biographies I've read recently, this book has been showing me how the world I grew up in--the world I assumed back then "just was"--came to be. Check it out. 

LibraryThing link

Labels: CheckItOut, PresidentialBioReadingList

// posted by John @ 5:05 PM