Showing 20 results for subject:"Biography & Autobiography / Political"
Thaddeus Stevens
Nineteenth-century Egalitarian
Hans Louis Trefousse
One of the most controversial figures in nineteenth-century Thaddeus Stevens is best remembered for his role as congressional leader of the radical Republicans and as a chief architect of Reconstruction. Long painted by historians as a vindictive "dictato
The Age of Turbulence
Adventures in a New World
Alan Greenspan
The former Federal Reserve Board chairman reveals the financial close call that nearly resulted in an economic disaster after September 11, his efforts to safeguard American interests, and the personal and educational history that informed his choices.
The Kennedy Women
The Saga of an American Family
Laurence Leamer
Based on five years of research, and with unprecedented cooperation from Kennedy family and associates, Laurence Leamer paints startling, in-depth portraits of the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters who struggled to build and maintain the Kennedy dynasty--from steerage on an immigrant vessel to the slums of Boston, from the court of St. James to the White House. Photographs.
John F. Kennedy
A Biography
Michael O'Brien
John F. Kennedy creates an absorbing, insightful and distinguished biography of one of America's most legendary Presidents. While current fashion in Kennedy scholarship is to deride the man's achievements, this book describes Kennedy's strengths, explains his shortcomings, and offers many new revelations. There are many specialized books on Kennedy's career, but no first-class modern biography--one that takes advantage of the huge volume of recent books and articles and new material released by the JFK library. Ten years in the making, this is a balanced and judicious profile that goes beyond the clash of interpretations and offers a fresh, nuanced perspective.
The Chairman
John J. McCloy, the Making of the American Establishment
Kai Bird
Kai Bird: The Chairman. John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment. Simon & Schuster, New York 1992. 801 S., 30,- Dollar
The Kennedy Curse
Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years
Edward Klein
Death was merciful to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for it spared her a parent's worst nightmare: the loss of a child. But if Jackie had lived to see her son, JFK Jr., perish in a plane crash on his way to his cousin's wedding, she would have been doubly horrified by the familiar pattern in the tragedy. Once again, on a day that should have been full of joy and celebration, America's first family was struck by the Kennedy Curse. In this probing expose, renowned Kennedy biographer Edward Klein-a bestselling author and journalist personally acquainted with many members of the Kennedy family-unravels one of the great mysteries of our time and explains why the Kennedys have been subjected to such a mind-boggling chain of calamities. Drawing upon scores of interviews with people who have never spoken out before, troves of private documents, archives in Ireland and America, and private conversations with Jackie, Klein explores the underlying pattern that governs the Kennedy Curse. The reader is treated to penetrating portraits of the Irish immigrant Patrick Kennedy; Rose Kennedy's father, "Honey Fitz"; the dynasty's founding father Joe Kennedy and his ill-fated daughter Kathleen, President Kennedy, accused rapist William Kennedy Smith, and the star-crossed lovers, JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. Each of the seven profiles demonstrates the basic premise of this book: The Kennedy Curse is the result of the destructive collision between the Kennedy's fantasy of omnipotence-an unremitting desire to get away with things that others cannot-and the cold, hard realities of life.
How We Missed the Story
Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan
Roy Gutman
Examining the U.S. foreign policy missteps leading up to 9/11
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
Gordon S. Wood
Wood scrutinizes the less typically American traits possessed by Franklin--such as his longtime loyalty to the Crown--and why he still became one of the Revolution's necessary men.
FDR's Fireside Chats
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
A collection of FDR's fireside chats presents them exactly as they were originally broadcast to explore a world of economic disaster, social reform, and international danger and to stress the importance of Roosevelt's leadership in American political history.
Fernando Wood
A Political Biography
Jerome Mushkat
Fernando Wood was one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century America. His fellow New Yorkers either respected or despised him, depending whether they considered his policies beneficial or harmful to their interests. The character revealed herein possessed some admirable qualities; high intelligence, sharp analytic skills, great capacity for hard work, and a clear talent to set his executive agenda. But equally evident are Wood's less admirable qualities; ruthless business practices, shoddy personal ethics, corrupt politics, dictatorial tendencies. What emerges is the story of a very complex person: a successful businessman, consummate politician, resourceful three-time may of New York City, and nine-term congressman, beneath which lurked mean and self-destructive tendencies. Take as a whole, Wood's colorful career was a unique microcosm of American history both during and after his lifetime. His business achievements mirrored popular beliefs in upward mobility. And Wood's mayoralty held a promise of revitalizing municipal government, giving it a social conscience, and setting new standards for the future. Despite his shortcomings, Fernando Wood played a major but unappreciated role in the urban and political history of time.
Zhou Enlai
The Last Perfect Revolutionary
Wenqian Gao
This first authoritative biography of the Premier of the Peoples Republic of China from 1949 to 1976, this volume offers an objective human portrait of one of the most important, most mythologized leaders in the history of communist China, based long-secret, classified documents. Photos.
The Genius
Theodore Dreiser
The original version of Dreiser's classic novel, in print for the first time
The Education of a Senator
Everett McKinley Dirksen
Recently discovered in the archives of the Dirksen Congressional Center, this is the memoir Senator Dirksen was writing at the time of this death in 1969. Covering the years of his boyhood through his election to the senate in 1950, it reveals the foundation of a great public servant in the making. His gravel-voiced warmth and wisdom come through on every page.
Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary
Ray E. Boomhower
On April 4, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., arrived in Indiana to campaign for the Indiana Democratic presidential primary. As Kennedy prepared to fly from an appearance in Muncie to Indianapolis, he learned that civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot outside his hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Before his plane landed in Indianapolis, Kennedy heard the news that King had died. Despite warnings from Indianapolis police that they could not guarantee his safety, and brushing off concerns from his own staff, Kennedy decided to proceed with plans to address an outdoor rally to be held in the heart of the city's African American community. On that cold and windy evening, Kennedy broke the news of King's death in an impassioned, extemporaneous speech on the need for compassion in the face of violence. It has proven to be one of the great speeches in American political history. Marking the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's Indianapolis speech, this book explains what brought the politician to Indiana that day, and explores the characters and events of the 1968 Indiana Democratic presidential primary in which Kennedy, who was an underdog, had a decisive victory.
Messages to the World
The Statements of Osama Bin Laden
Osama Bin Laden
The first English translation of the complete statements by Osama bin Laden, has been placed in its historical and theological context by renowned Arabist, Bruce Lawrence.
Hitler's Priestess
Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
A biography of Savitri Devi (1905-1982), the unusual woman who believed Hitler was an avatar and attempted to combine Hinduism and anti-Semitism. The author discusses Devi's denial of the Holocaust, her appeal to neo-Nazis, and the relationship of her beliefs to animal rights, social Darwinism, and even Deep Ecology. The focus of the book is on how someone with so little tangible connection to Nazi Germany became such a powerful advocate of Hitler's misanthropy. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The Imaginary Voyage
With Theodor Herzl in Israel
Shimon Peres
Ex Israeli Premier Shimon Peres takes us on an imaginary trip around Israel with Zionist leader Theodore Herzl. Together they contrast their impressions of this young country.
The Power Broker
Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Robert A. Caro
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York. One of the Modern Library’s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century, Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happens—the way things really get done in America's City Halls and Statehouses—and brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller. But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man—an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives. We see how Moses began: the handsome, intellectual young heir to the world of Our Crowd, an idealist. How, rebuffed by the entrenched political establishment, he fought for the power to accomplish his ideals. How he first created a miraculous flowering of parks and parkways, playlands and beaches—and then ultimately brought down on the city the smog-choked aridity of our urban landscape, the endless miles of (never sufficient) highway, the hopeless sprawl of Long Island, the massive failures of public housing, and countless other barriers to humane living. How, inevitably, the accumulation of power became an end in itself. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He was held in fear—his dossiers could disgorge the dark secret of anyone who opposed him. He was, he claimed, above politics, above deals; and through decade after decade, the newspapers and the public believed. Meanwhile, he was developing his public authorities into a fourth branch of government known as "Triborough"—a government whose records were closed to the public, whose policies and plans were decided not by voters or elected officials but solely by Moses—an immense economic force directing pressure on labor unions, on banks, on all the city's political and economic institutions, and on the press, and on the Church. He doled out millions of dollars' worth of legal fees, insurance commissions, lucrative contracts on the basis of who could best pay him back in the only coin he coveted: power. He dominated the politics and politicians of his time—without ever having been elected to any office. He was, in essence, above our democratic system. Robert Moses held power in the state for 44 years, through the governorships of Smith, Roosevelt, Lehman, Dewey, Harriman and Rockefeller, and in the city for 34 years, through the mayoralties of La Guardia, O'Dwyer, Impellitteri, Wagner and Lindsay, He personally conceived and carried through public works costing 27 billion dollars—he was undoubtedly America's greatest builder. This is how he built and dominated New York—before, finally, he was stripped of his reputation (by the press) and his power (by Nelson Rockefeller). But his work, and his will, had been done.
American Creation
Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic
Joseph J. Ellis
He explains how the idea of a strong federal government, championed by Washington, was eventually embraced by the American people, the majority of whom had to be won over, as they feared an absolute power reminiscent of the British Empire. And he details the emergence of the two-party system - then a political novelty - which today stands as the founders' most enduring legacy." "But Ellis is equally incisive about their failures, and he makes clear how their inability to abolish slavery and to reach a just settlement with the Native Americans has played an equally important role in shaping our national character."--BOOK JACKET.