About the book
The contradictions of Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh president, are the subject of Evan Thomas's biography. Thomas presents a man who was at once hopeful and deeply flawed. Nixon was a chief architect of the modern Republican Party and of its silent majority, yet some saw him as a liberal for working to end the draft, to create the Environmental Protection Agency and to desegregate Southern schools. Raised by devout Quakers, he grew up behind a favored older brother and thrived on conflict. Thomas sets the Checkers speech beside the schemes that earned him the name Tricky Dick, and weighs détente with the Soviet Union and the opening to communist China against tactics that hurt his name well before Watergate.
Bill Gates said he was surprised to learn what a poor manager Nixon was, often leaving his staff with opposite ideas of what he wanted. Ryan Holiday called it one of the best books he has read about a politician, and Walter Isaacson endorsed it as a psychological portrait.
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This book has 3 recommendations
Bill Gates (CEO/Microsoft)
I was a little surprised to learn what a bad manager Nixon was. Although it doesn’t compare to his other failings, Nixon’s management style offers some good reminders of how not to run a team. He avoided conflict at all costs. His staff frequently left meetings with diametrically opposed views on what he had just asked them to do. Or he would be crystal-clear about what he wanted, while actually expecting his staff to ignore his demands. His team wisely blew off his repeated orders to break into the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, and steal a document that might be damaging to him.
Ryan Holiday (Media Strategist, Author, Founder/Brass Check)
One of the best books I’ve ever read about a politician. It’s worth reading whatever country you live in and whatever your political beliefs are.
Walter Isaacson (Author)
What was it really like to be Richard Nixon? Evan Thomas tackles this fascinating question by peeling back the layers of a man driven by a poignant mix of optimism and fear. The result is both insightful history and an astonishingly compelling psychological portrait of an anxious introvert who struggled to be a transformative statesman.
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