3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magisterial polemical biography, Jun 27 2009
This review is from: The Invincible Quest: The Life of Richard Milhous Nixon (Hardcover)
This books is a magisterial biography of a life, without which much of the mid-to-late 20th century would not have been the same.
I cannot think that there will be another biography which surpasses this one for its sheer detail and broad grasp of a tumultuous and - in the end - triumphant (in Nixon's own terms) life.
As a biographer Lord Black certainly goes through the motions of showing some detachment from his subject, as a good biographer should. Nixon's flaws - what a subject in themselves! - are copiously described, but this work is no exercise in journalistic mud slinging. The writer not only warms to his subject, and shows sympathy for him, but there is another element unmistakably there also. This sense of deep sympathy relates in some ways to Nixon's own sense of empathy for a figure such as de Gaulle, whose own personal journey was marked by personal adversity and yet ultimate triumph through - as it might be argued - sheer force of will.
The somewhat elusive yet unmistakable sense of Nixon's character which one receives from this copious biography is of a meteoric loner, variously standing apart from his contemporaries but at times errupting on the scene to dominate and amaze.
Nixon's complex relationship with Kissinger - a meteoric character himself - is well described, with each retaining enough pragmatic decorum to maintain their mutual relations on a workable level, whatever their inner fulminations.
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