Destiny and Power
The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $16.99
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “illuminating” (USA Today) biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush.
“Destiny and Power reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the personalities who shape it.”—The New York Times Book Review
ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the forty-first president and his family, Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times. From the Oval Office to Camp David, from his study in the private quarters of the White House to Air Force One, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the first Gulf War to the end of Communism, Destiny and Power charts the thoughts, decisions, and emotions of a modern president who may have been the last of his kind. This is the human story of a man who was, like the nation he led, at once noble and flawed.
From the Pacific to the presidency, Destiny and Power charts the vicissitudes of the life of this quietly compelling American original. Meacham sheds new light on the rise of the right wing in the Republican Party, a shift that signaled the beginning of the end of the center in American politics. Destiny and Power is an affecting portrait of a man who, driven by destiny and by duty, forever sought, ultimately, to put the country first.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
America's 41st president shines as a nice guy with an edge of steel in this admiring biography. Pulitzer-winning historian Meacham (American Lion) styles Bush as the embodiment of Greatest Generation virtues: hard-working, dutiful, patriotic, well-mannered, friendly, fair-minded, and increasingly out of step with the ugly partisanship of latter-day politics. But beneath the soft affability he detects a fiercely competitive drive and go-it-alone nerve, especially when Bush decided to risk impeachment by launching the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq even without Congress's authorization. With access to Bush's genial-to-peevish diaries and extensive interviews with Bush, the author paints a warm, evocative portrait of a president who in office was tagged as a wimpy blur, one that supports later historical opinion in saluting his deft pragmatism in navigating the collapse of Soviet communism. But Meacham soft-pedals contradictions in Bush's character, like the very ungentlemanly 1988 presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis; and though Bush inaugurated America's resurgent military interventionism in the Middle East, a geopolitical watershed whose profound repercussions are still playing out, the book asks few serious questions about that troubled legacy. This is a vivid, well-written account that doesn't quite come to grips with its subject's pivotal place in history. Photos.
Customer Reviews
Inspiring
I loved this book. It instilled in me a deep respect for Bush 41, and a curiosity to learn more. Shortly after finishing this terrific read, my wife and I travelled from Canada to College Station, Texas to visit the George H W Bush presidential library and visit Mr. Bush’s gravesite.
A statesman if ever there was one, history will look kindly on Bush, and Mr. Meacham for his significant contributions to our understanding of the president and the man.