Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
Author: Conrad Black
From the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, Nixon was a polarizing figure in American politics, admired for his intelligence, savvy, and strategic skill, and reviled for his shady manner and cutthroat tactics. In deft, masterful prose, Black separates the good in Nixon—his foreign initiatives, some of his domestic policies, and his firm political hand—from the sinister, with his questionable methods and the collection of excesses and offenses associated with the Watergate scandal. Black argues that the hounding of Nixon from office was partly political retribution from a lifetime of enemies and Nixon’s misplaced loyalty to unworthy subordinates, and not clearly the consequence of crimes in which he participated.
National Review
Many writers who know their subjects so well might be tempted to take shortcuts in the archives. Not Black. He's researched everything and read everything, and delights in pulling up amazing let-Nixon-be-Nixon and let-Henry-be-Henry nuggets…. The overwhelming impression one takes away of the narrator…is that of a man without guile. Black's two favorite adjectives are "distinguished" and "considerable." He is a straightforward admirer of the institutions of American government and the great men of his youth: not only Roosevelt and Nixon, but also Eisenhower and, preeminently, de Gaulle. In all the mass of this book, you will find not a whiff of that touch of evil on which Nixon prided himself….This is an impressive and profound book by a decent man, written under travail and adversity. One is left wishing that there will be many more like it from Conrad Black, and that a writer who, in his tycoon days, did so much to assist and support the work of others will at last be granted the tranquility to complete his own.
New Criterion
To read Black's book is to be treated like the guest at a lavish dinner party presided over by an opinionated, brilliant, mordantly amusing, powerful, and loquacious host.a `rocking, socking' (to borrow a term Nixon used to describe his more vigorous campaigns) yarn.
Publishers Weekly
Recently convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice, former Hollinger International chairman and newspaper magnate Black (Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom) is better positioned than most men to chronicle the power and disgrace experienced by Richard Nixon. Black is a versatile and thorough biographer who brings not only sympathy but eloquent clarity to his task. The result is a vibrant narrative of personal and political accomplishment that, though great and heroically achieved, was often marred by self-inflicted wounds springing from personal paranoia. Black is at his best portraying the many contradictions in Nixon's personal makeup and political history. The Nixon who most fascinates Black is the firebrand cold warrior who (in partnership with Henry Kissinger) went on to invent the notion of detente and eventually opened relations with China. As Black shows, Nixon's duality followed him into his postpresidential years. The tireless son of Quakers methodically sought after Watergate to rebuild his reputation as a statesman by issuing carefully crafted publications and granting strategically timed interviews. Black's superb volume, incorporating much new research, is an important and worthy addition to the literature. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationTable of Contents:
Acknowledgments IXThe Meteoric Rise: 1913-1953 1
One of the Common People: 1913-1945 3
Into the Arena: 1945-1950 75
Vertical Ascent: 1950-1952 145
The Travails of the Fox: 1952-1953 209
The Ordeal of Ambition: 1953-1968 269
The Chief Apprentice: 1953-1956 271
The Regent and the Striver: 1956-1959 321
Defeat and Endurance: 1959-1963 376
The Triumph of Survival: 1963-1968 444
The Pursuit of Peace: 1968-1972 509
Tumult and Victory: 1968-1969 511
The Silent Majority: 1969-1970 577
Calming the Nation: 1970-1971 642
Waging Peace: 1971-1972 703
The Indestructible Man and Myth: 1972- 773
The Pinnacle: 1972 775
The Precipice: 1972-1973 846
The Inferno: 1973-1974 913
The Transfiguration: 1974-1994 987
Notes 1061
Bibliography 1095
Index 1108
Book review: The Wise Men or Republic Jowett translation
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Author: Martin Luther King
"We've got some difficult days ahead," civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., told a crowd gathered at Memphis's Clayborn Temple on April 3, 1968. "But it really doesn't matter to me now because I've been to the mountaintop. . . . And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."
These prohetic words, uttered the day before his assassination, challenged those he left behind to see that his "promised land" of racial equality became a reality; a reality to which King devoted the last twelve years of his life.
These words and other are commemorated here in the only major one-volume collection of this seminal twentieth-century American prophet's writings, speeches, interviews, and autobiographical reflections. A Testament of Hope contains Martin Luther King, Jr.'s essential thoughts on nonviolence, social policy, integration, black nationalism, the ethics of love and hope, and more.
New Yorker
Reveals the breadth and depth of [King's] philosophical thinking, his tough-mindedness, and the sophistication and forensic skill that he could bringto argument.
New York Times Book Review
Here, in [King's] own words, are the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent protest . . . King's persuasiveness comes through again and again.
The New Yorker
Reveals the breadth and depth of [King's] philosophical thinking, his tough-mindedness, and the sophistication and forensic skill that he could bring to argument.
Washington Post
The volume and quality of this intellectual work is breathtaking . . . His writings reveal an intellectual struggle and growth as fierce and alive as any chronicle of his political life could possibly be.
Kansas City Star
The most powerful and enduring words of the man who touched the conscience of the nation and the world.
San Francisc Chronicle Review
Brings us King in many roles—philosopher, theologian, orator, essayist, interviewee, and author.
New York Times Book Review
Here, in [King's] own words, are the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent protest . . . King's persuasiveness comes through again and again.
Kansas City Star
The most powerful and enduring words of the man who touched the conscience of the nation and the world.
San Francisco Chronicle Review
Brings us King in many roles—philosopher, theologian, orator, essayist, interviewee, and author.
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