Member: tedaldrich

What can you tell me about the Hiram Johnson biography? I just finished a book on Theodore Roosevelt after the White House and he was TR's running mate in 1912, and I remember he died the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Is it a good biofgraphy, would you say?

posted by Schmerguls at 8:04 am (EST) on Nov 14, 2008

I notice you are pretty stingy with awarding five stars, so I looked in your library for five and four star books. I noticed you gave four stars to Hoover Dam: An American Adventure, which I had never heard of, so I read it and found it was a good book, and so I thank you for your guidance! (You rank high on my list of similar libraies, having I forget high amny books which I have read.)

posted by Schmerguls at 5:56 am (EST) on Dec 12, 2007

I agree for the most part. There are exceptions. Page Smith is fantastic and he wrote a two volume book on John Adams 45 years ago. Douglas Freeman wrote a four volume book on R.E. Lee in the 1930's that was exceptional as well. All in all, the new authors are pretty good. Beschloss is enjoyable.

My favorite author is Robert Caro. The three books he has written on LBJ combined with his pulitzer prize winning book on Robert Moses are simply amazing.

In second place are so many including Remini, McCullough, Chernow, Jessup (wrote a great book on Eliju Root), Morris (except his book on Reagan), early Ambrose (his books on Ike), Martin Gilbert (Churchill books), and others.

If the life is interesting enough, I find that it is hard to mess up a biography. That being said, I can imagine that the other books on Webster that you have read do not cut it, yet his life was interesting.

In any event, your collection is great on bio's and WWII and I have gone through it carefully and orderd 10 books that looked interesting.

Thanks for the reply

posted by tedaldrich at 9:52 pm (EST) on Apr 29, 2007

I think the good biographies of these days are far better than the biographies of old. What I mean is that a Remini biography of Webster or Clay is head and shoulders in interest above the older biographies of those men, so much so that I would like to see new biographies of guys like James G. Blaine. I have read:
2136 James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days, by David Saville Muzzey (read 19 Mar 1988)
And I really liked it, but it was published in 1935 and I suspect that today a biography of him would be more lively than was Muzzey's, which was quite approving of Blaine, in general.
I would be interested in knowing of political biographies which staned out in your mind. Here is what I have read by Remini:
1478 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767-1821, by Robert V. Remini (read 27 Jan 1978)
1868 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832 Volume II, by Robert V. Remini (read 15 Sept 1984)
1869 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845, by Robert V. Remini (read 27 Sept 1984) (National Book Award nonfiction prize for 1984)
2514 Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, by Robert V. Remini (read 30 Jun 1993)
3095 Daniel Webster: The Man and His Times, by Robert V. Remini (read 26 Jul 1998)

I was bowled over by his Webster bio, infinitely better than these other Webster bios I had read:

1398 Daniel Webster Volume I 1782-1830, by Claude Moore Fuess (read 31 July 1976)
1500 Daniel Webster, by Irving H. Bartlett (read 28 Oct 1978)
2023 One and Inseparable: Daniel Webster and the Union, by Maurice G. Baxter (read 7 Oct 1986)

posted by Schmerguls at 8:19 am (EST) on Apr 28, 2007