An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Smith, Richard Norton

Verlag: Simon and Schuster, New York, 1984

Fine condition dark brown boards/dark brown cloth spine/gold spine lettering contained in a near fine condition non price-clipped photographic dust jacket. Includes Dedication; Quote; Acknowledgments; Prologue: Old Man in a Hurry; Appendix; Notes and Sources and Index. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs. "He was a global hero, the man who fed starving Belgium and Bolshevik Russia, Woodrow Wilson's disciple at Versailles. In 1920, both Wilson and young Franklin Roosevelt hoped he would be elected president. In 1928, he was. He added two million acres to the national parks, called the first White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, championed prison reform, tax cuts graduated to favor lower-income Americans, and world-wide disarmament. He pulled U.S. troops out of Nicaragua. Yet his name will forever be associated with the Great Depression that began in 1929. Hoovervilles, Hoover Blankets, Hoover Pullmans, Hoover Hogs - all shriveled his mandate and destroyed his reputation. Herbert Hoover left office in 1933 the most hated man in America. Excommunicated, he returned to his California home and was pronounced politically dead. Just after Pearl Harbor, Bernard Baruch recommended that FDR put Hoover to work on the home front. "Well, I'm not Jesus Christ," snapped Roosevelt. "I'm not going to raise him from the dead." Hoover himself managed that unlikely feat; this is the story of how he did it. Based on more than two hundred interviews and thousands of pages of private papers, it is the first truly intimate look at the man dismissed by contemporaries as a rubber face atop a size-17 collar. It is also a stunning reappraisal of 20th century history, across a canvas as large as the world itself. It was Harry Truman who in 1946 invited the 72-year-old ex-President to circle the globe and find ways to avert global famine. The two men became warm if unlikely friends. Their alliance is only part of the surprising story of Hoover's behind-the-scenes influence: his personal negotiations to head off a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and, much later, to end World War II without dropping the atomic bomb; his launching of Richard Nixon's congressional career by a timely offer to raise campaign funds; his invitation from John F. Kennedy to chair the new Peace Corps. Hoover lived thirty-one years after leaving the White House. When he died in October 1964, Americans felt guilt as well as grief. The old hero had been restored; the humanitarian had taken precedence in public memory over the accidental politician. It was a historic comeback, an extraordinary tale of personal courage. "I outlived the bastards" was Hoover's own wry explanation of his survival. An Uncommon Man suggests there was much more to it than that." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 002800

Bibliografische Details

Titel: An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert ...
Verlag: Simon and Schuster, New York
Erscheinungsdatum: 1984
Einband: Hardcover
Zustand: Fine
Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Near Fine
Auflage: 1st Edition