Richard Nixon: The Life
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
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.
John A. Farrell
John A. Farrell is the author of Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, and Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post Rave of the Year. As a longtime journalist at The Boston Globe, he worked as White House correspondent, Washington editor, and investigative reporter on the vaunted Spotlight team. His award-winning portrait of Nixon was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography, and earned him the title of American Historian Laureate from the New York Historical Society.
Read more from John A. Farrell
Clarence Darrow: attorney for the damned Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Richard Nixon: the life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Richard Nixon
Related ebooks
Richard Nixon: the life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inside Nixon's Enemies List Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Winter Soldiers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNixon's Secrets: The Rise, Fall, and Untold Truth about the President, Watergate, and the Pardon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lincoln and Kennedy: Redux Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Energy Caper, or Nixon in the Sky with Diamonds: The Sixties Generation, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFamous Americans of Recent Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBack Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Company A, Second Illinois Cavalry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJack & Dick: When Kennedy Met Nixon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFranklin's Autobiography (Eclectic English Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Peacemaker: Nixon: The Man, President, and My Friend Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Powers That Be Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deathload Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFranklin's Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Time for Glory: The Story of a Dismissed Legend Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCity of Promise: A Novel of New York's Gilded Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The United States Since the Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hero of a Hundred Fights: Collected Stories from the Dime Novel King, from Buffalo Bill to Wild Bill Hickok Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jackson County War: Reconstruction and Resistance in Post–Civil War Florida Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRecollections of the Civil War: Civil War Memories Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMisguided Morals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKKK: The Story of the Klu Klux Klan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStar Spangled Scandal: Sex, Murder, and the Trial that Changed America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNorfleet: The Actual Experiences of a Texas Rancher’s 30,000-Mile Transcontinental Chase After Five Confidence Men Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Political Biographies For You
Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beautiful Things: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Profiles in Courage: Deluxe Modern Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of My Experiments With Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Watergate: A New History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (Revised Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nelson Mandela Biography: The Long Walk to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington: The Indispensable Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Days in November Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Richard Nixon
52 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The president was “a gut fighter….His first reaction was to fight back…to get even.”
Amongst my earliest memories during the early/mid 1970s was the ubiquity of the word Watergate. Somehow I imagined it was related to the games of dominos that my grandparents played with their friends. The designs created during the game evoked plumbing -- I was too young to grasp that Plumber was another timely designation.
Perhaps it is hubris, whatever the motivation--it is daunting to attempt to encapsulate a man's life in 540 pages, especially as one as involved Richard M. Nixon. Beginning in WWII and then retracing back to Nixon's birth and ancestors, a conflicted portrait emerges, fuelled by the dueling temperaments of his parents. Nixon--ever insecure--always felt his success while girded by hard work was purely coincidental. Dumb luck.
“Nixon “didn’t give a damn” about the finer points of domestic policy, said aide Tom Huston. “All he wanted to do was to keep the sharks away.” And so many progressive measures, crafted with the help of his administration, made their way to Nixon’s desk, where he acquiesced, signed his name, and took his just share of the credit.
The foreign policy aspects of the book were riveting, domestic less so. It is important to recognize that during the 1950s Nixon was a much more vocal supporter of civil rights than Eisenhower, Johnson or Kennedy. Nixon felt betrayed then when African-Americans voted for Kennedy in the 1960 election.
Nixon's entreaties with the Soviets and the Chinese are simply breathtaking. His approach to strife in the subcontinent is abominable. As was the stewardship of Vietnam -- though who amongst his storied predecessors handled it better?
A very human biography of a most human president. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book presents me with the dilemma I often face when rating biographies: how do I balance the quality of writing (Farrell writes quite nicely) with the depth of the necessary research (again, Farrell has done a good job), along with my overall feelings about the subject? I often found myself feeling very sympathetic to the wasted raw intelligence that was young Richard. But when that was compared to his complete lack of morals as a mature politician? Bah. I am quite glad his Quaker mother didn’t live to see how degraded he became. And do, I will cop out and rate it 3.5 stars. But definitely worth the read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent, shorter than Ambrose but at least as well written. Can't imagine what RN would have done if he had picked up one of those girls, but per Farrell, he did try from time to time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5after reading this excellent bio I ended up having respect for nixon. he did do a lot of good things. however his very dark side destroyed him.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/55508. Richard Nixon The Life, by John A. Farrell (read 22 Oct 2017) Back in July of 1995 I read Stephen Ambrose's three volume life o Nixon and on 21 Jan 2016 I read Evan Thomas' biography of Nixon. This biography by John A. Farrell was published this year and is teeming with original research and I found it completely fascinating. It is certainly even-handed and at times I was viewing it as over-friendly to Nixon, but I think it adequately shows the near-fatal flaws in NIxon while giving him credit for what good things he did Farrell had the benefit of tapes not available to Ambrose and so this biography probably somewhat dates prior biographies of Nixon. The thoroughness of the research put into this book is very impressive and no one interested in Nixon's career can fail to be impressed by the book. The account of the events leading up to Nixon's fall is mind-boggling and demonstrates how right we were to be ready to convict him for the evil he fostered
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A great book. Farrell has done a magnificent job of relating Nixon to his twoparents, the Quaker mother, Hannah, and the rogue father, Frank. It is mostlly as a result of these two that he is so screwed up/. Farrell praises him when he deserves it, mostly his friendship with many blacks in the 50s and rips him when he screws up. especially on the 68 election. where Dick told the South Vietnamese not to join the Peace talks in Paris when we had only lost 30,000 soldiers. Very matter of fact. The author has done his homework, reading all of the Haldeman notes which corroborated the 68 story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5He might be considered the original Cold Warrior and his quarter-century career was defined by and defined the period in the United States, but his legacy is intertwined with a landmark Washington hotel. Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell reveals the personal and political life of one of the most divisive figures of mid-20th Century America.Farrell’s life of Richard Nixon revolves around the political life of the United States from the end of World War II to the end of the Vietnam War, in which he was a significant player. The biography begins with how Nixon entered politics before going into his childhood, courtship of Pat, and experience in World War II. While Farrell doesn’t ignore Nixon’s family life after 1946, this is essentially a political biography because that’s how Nixon lived his life. His red-baiting tactics in 1946 and 1950 heralding the McCarthy era are examined in full, the Alger Hiss case is examined in full, Nixon’s role in Eisenhower’s nomination is revealed, his friendship then antagonism with the Kennedys is full revealed, and his hate-hate relationship with the press and the Establishment is a constant theme. Once in the Oval Office however Farrell’s focus of the biography revolves around Vietnam and the events that lead up to the momentous events both foreign and domestic of 1972 that would define his legacy. With just under 560 pages of text, Farrell had a lot of history and politics that he needed choose what to focus on and what to breeze by. I did not agree with some of Farrell’s decisions when it came to Nixon’s time in the White House as it felt he was short shifting some things, not Vietnam, so he could get to Watergate; however, Farrell’s time spent on the Bangladesh Liberation War/Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 revealed new information to me and was a great addition.Richard Nixon: The Life is a well written and informative biography of the 37th President of the United States that John A. Farrell did an impressive job in researching and authoring. While I had minor grips with Farrell’s decisions during Nixon’s years in the White House, it doesn’t undermine the overall quality of the book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellent!! One of the best bio's I've read. Very informative, great flow and a bit of humor thrown in.
For a single volume bio I would highly recommend.