Even with his tainted legacy, his record is impressive. “Thomas has a fine eye for the telling quote and the funny vignette, and his style is eminently readable.Nixon could easily have become one of the greatest American presidents. a fair, insightful and highly entertaining portrait.”-The Wall Street Journal He possessed the plainspoken eloquence to reduce American television audiences to tears with his career-saving “Checkers” speech meanwhile, Nixon’s darker half hatched schemes designed to take down his political foes, earning him the notorious nickname “Tricky Dick.” Drawing on a wide range of historical accounts, Thomas’s biography reveals the contradictions of a leader whose vision and foresight led him to achieve détente with the Soviet Union and reestablish relations with communist China, but whose underhanded political tactics tainted his reputation long before the Watergate scandal.Ī deeply insightful character study as well as a brilliant political biography, Being Nixon offers a surprising look at a man capable of great bravery and extraordinary deviousness-a balanced portrait of a president too often reduced to caricature. Through high school and college, in the navy and in politics, Nixon was constantly leading crusades and fighting off enemies real and imagined. Kennedy) grew up in the shadow of an older, favored brother and thrived on conflict and opposition.

The son of devout Quakers, Richard Nixon (not unlike his rival John F. One of the principal architects of the modern Republican Party and its “silent majority” of disaffected whites and conservative ex-Dixiecrats, Nixon was also deemed a liberal in some quarters for his efforts to desegregate Southern schools, create the Environmental Protection Agency, and end the draft. In this revelatory biography, Evan Thomas delivers a radical, unique portrait of America’s thirty-seventh president, Richard Nixon, a contradictory figure who was both determinedly optimistic and tragically flawed. One of Time’s Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Year No single volume about Nixon’s long and interesting life could be so comprehensive.”-Chicago Tribune Nixon, a political savant whose gaping character flaws would drive him from the presidency and forever taint his legacy.

The landmark New York Times bestselling biography of Richard M.

Being nixon by evan thomas