Best biography on richard nixon
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My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies
The last two presidents inom covered, JFK and LBJ, were nothing if not fascinating. But the next president I&#;m reading about seems uniquely intriguing.
An awkward, idiosyncratic man who nevertheless became a successful politician, Richard Nixon diligently worked his way into the presidency only to self-destruct in spectacular fashion.
He is the first person whose entire presidency I was alive to witness (though I was far too young to notice). To my generation he is often little more than a caricature &#; and a curiously nefarious enigma.
I hope the dozen biographies I&#;m planning to read will explain how this unusual man, with his surly temperament and paranoid insecurities, was successful in politics&#;and why he was compelled to commit political suicide. But one thing is certain: I won&#;t be surprised to find him every bit as complex and captivating as his two presidential predecessors.
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I&#;m starting with Conrad
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The best books on Richard Nixon
Our topic is books about Richard Nixon, America’s 37th president. In Nixon’s Shadow, you write that in his own time, “No one was more admired (he was the most respected man in America four years in a row, Gallup reported), no one more loathed (for six years he ranked among the world’s most hated men in one poll, twice edging out Hitler as number one).”
Even very early on, when Richard Nixon was a congressman then a senator and then Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, there was something about him that brought out the hatred in liberals and suspicion among his fellow conservatives. Perhaps it went to his personal characteristics. As most politicians are, he was incredibly driven. But unlike most, Nixon did not respect the norms of politics and he ultimately did not respect the rules of American democracy.
You see this in the literature about Nixon. By the s, there is writing about the ways he didn’t respect the rules of fair play. Nixon became
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My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies
Five months, twelve biographies, 8, pages&#;and one insufferably inscrutable politician.
For all the differences between Nixon and LBJ, I was surprised to find that in many ways Richard Nixon was his Democratic predecessor&#;s Republican doppelgänger.
Both men were born into very modest circumstances, both were exceptionally driven, both possessed larger-than-life personalities and both used every possible means to amass and wield political power.
But where I found the sociable if crude Lyndon Johnson an intriguingly fascinating character, I found the awkwardly introverted Richard Nixon distressingly irreconcilable and perplexing. The more time I spent with Nixon, the more impressed I became at his political success&#;and depressed that he never managed to outrun his demons.
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I began my campaign through Nixon&#;s life with nine single-volume books and I finished with Stephen Ambrose&#;s renowned three-volume serie