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Bezig met laden... Being Nixon: A Man Divideddoor Evan Thomas
Best Biographies (152) The Presidents (37) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Fascinating but sparse on detail, this biography of the 37th president hits the high (and low) spots of Nixon's controversial career without dallying overlong on any of the nuts and bolts that underpinned that career. Thomas writes very well, and there are both fresh and familiar insights into Nixon and his personal life and demons. But in the end, there is not enough deep analysis or explication to give one a sense of what being Richard Nixon, or being with him, was really like. This is the 37th presidential biography I have read, and I admit I expected an overabundance of detail, so rich and intricate is the story of Nixon and so extraordinarily well-documented his life. Instead, I found myself far too often wondering how something played out, what went on in the days and minutes and not just the months and years. The Watergate scandal receives the best of the detail, and I understood it more clearly after reading the book. But of the 37 presidents I've read books on thus far, this is the first to make me think maybe I need to read a second book on one. ( ) Even-handed, entertaining, informative even after 40 years of books and movies about Watergate, tragic. An impressive effort by Evan Thomas at humanizing our least human President. Thomas is a journalistic insider who admits that Nixon was paranoid but correct: the press really was out to get Tricky Dick. Being Nixon was best up to 1968, delivering on its promise of “a radical, unique portrait of a complicated figure who was both determinedly optimistic and tragically flawed.” Although the years of his administration were familiar territory, Nixon changed once he became President, a point acknowledged but not explained by Thomas. And so, “A Man Divided” peaked my curiosity, but left me somewhat unsatisfied. 5345. Being Nixon A Man Divided, by Evan Thomas (read 21 Jan 2016) Even though in July of 1995 I read Stephen Ambrose's three-volume biography of Nixon, I read this book since I believe Evan Thomas is a great narrator of interesting history (this is the 5th book by him which I have read, the others being The Wise Men (read 8 Dec 1991), The Man To See (read 17 Jan 1992), Sea of Thunder (read 18 Aug 2008), and The War Lovers (read 8 Oct 2010). While I always was opposed to Nixon and always when I could voted against him, I found the good things which Thomas says about Nixon valid. Certainly his opening to China was a bold and good step which Republicans would have screamed against if it had been done by a Democrat. He clearly flubbed up in failing to end the Vietnam War sooner than he did. The account of Watergate is well done and exciting to read, even though we are all so familiar with that spectacle. I did not find an uninteresting page in this well-written and well-researched book. This is an amazing psychological profile of Richard Nixon that looks at his childhood influences, his growth into an adult and his career in politics. The author shows the reader how Watergate was not just a fluke in his career, but the culmination of his weaknesses and the choices he made that led him to take steps that destroyed his presidency. It is a frightening look at a man who should never have been elected president, and was twice, with the largest majority in history for his second term, but who was so driven by his insecurities and fears that he engaged in conduct that was both immoral and illegal on a consistent basis. This is a wonderful and insightful look at history. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Erelijsten
Biography & Autobiography.
History.
Politics.
Nonfiction.
HTML:The landmark New York Times bestselling biography of Richard M. Nixon, a political savant whose gaping character flaws would drive him from the presidency and forever taint his legacy. ??A biography of eloquence and breadth . . . No single volume about Nixon??s long and interesting life could be so comprehensive.???Chicago Tribune One of Time??s Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Year In this revelatory biography, Evan Thomas delivers a radical, unique portrait of America??s thirty-seventh president, Richard Nixon, a contradictory figure who was both determinedly optimistic and tragically flawed. One of the principal architects of the modern Republican Party and its ??silent majority? of disaffected whites and conservative ex-Dixiecrats, Nixon was also deemed a liberal in some quarters for his efforts to desegregate Southern schools, create the Environmental Protection Agency, and end the draft. The son of devout Quakers, Richard Nixon (not unlike his rival John F. Kennedy) grew up in the shadow of an older, favored brother and thrived on conflict and opposition. Through high school and college, in the navy and in politics, Nixon was constantly leading crusades and fighting off enemies real and imagined. He possessed the plainspoken eloquence to reduce American television audiences to tears with his career-saving ??Checkers? speech; meanwhile, Nixon??s darker half hatched schemes designed to take down his political foes, earning him the notorious nickname ??Tricky Dick.? Drawing on a wide range of historical accounts, Thomas??s biography reveals the contradictions of a leader whose vision and foresight led him to achieve détente with the Soviet Union and reestablish relations with communist China, but whose underhanded political tactics tainted his reputation long before the Watergate scandal. A deeply insightful character study as well as a brilliant political biography, Being Nixon offers a surprising look at a man capable of great bravery and extraordinary deviousness??a balanced portrait of a president too often reduced to caricature. Praise for Being Nixon ??Terrifically engaging . . . a fair, insightful and highly entertaining portrait.???The Wall Street Journal ??Thomas has a fine eye for the telling quote and the funny vignette, and his style is eminently r Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)973.924092History and Geography North America United States 1901- Eisenhower Through Clinton Administrations Richard Nixon BiographyLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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