Richard Nixon

Prodigiously sourced and insightful [an] important and revealing biography. -- Jonathan Mirsky * The Spectator * [A] wonderful biography of Americas most controversial 20th-century president a sharply observed but refreshingly uncensorious assessment. * New Statesman * Farrells blockbuster portrait of Nixon is revelatory filled with fresh reporting shedding new light on the roots of our own dark political moment. He shows that dirty tricks, October Surprises, and anti-elitist resentment were among the gifts Nixon bequeathed to our own presidential politics. -- Jane Mayer, author of <i>Dark Money: the hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right</i> John A. Farrell has once again delivered a rich, precisely written portrait of the past to help us understand the present. He traces the origins and turning points of one of the most complex, complicated and fascinating presidents of the modern age with flair and narrative skill. Each page is a joy to read, on the way to a very satisfying whole. -- John Dickerson, moderator of CBSs Face the Nation and author of <i>Whistlestop: my favorite stories from presidential campaign history</i> John A. Farrell's Richard Nixon: the life is an expertly written and strikingly comprehensive portrait of America's most complicated president. Farrell has a genius for the telling anecdote and apropos quote. His command of the sources is staggering. Richard Nixon is a true landmark achievement. -- Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University and author of <i>Cronkite</i> Written with skills he acquired as an investigative reporter, John Farrells tour de force takes us through the rise and fall of Richard Nixon with penetrating and thought-provoking analysis. -- Irwin Gellman, author of <i>The Contender: Richard Nixon, the congress years, 1946 to 1952</i> and <i>The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961</i> Full of fresh, endlessly revealing insights into Nixons political career, less on the matter of his character, refreshingly, than on the events that accompanied and resulted from it. -- <i>Kirkus Reviews</i>, starred review A probing biography Readers track the lonely and hard-won ascent of a sickly, love-starved child, who dreams like a Romantic but manoeuvres like Machiavelli An unflinching portrait. -- <i>Booklist</i>, starred review Jack Farrell gives us two profoundly resonant Richard Nixons the last progressive Republican, and the author of our national divisions. He also gives us, in one engrossing volume, the defining biography of our darkest president. -- Larry Tye, author of <i>Bobby Kennedy: the making of a liberal icon</i> Brilliant, ruthless, a president who combined some enlightened policies with inner darkness, Richard Nixon stands alone in the history of American politics. John A. Farrells gripping account vividly captures Nixon from his earliest days catapulting to Congress with a cold-blooded debate stunt to the mounting crises he faced in the White House, culminating in his spectacular fall. -- T.J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of <i>Custers Trials</i> and <i>The First Tycoon</i> Richard Nixons political career has all the nooks and crannies of an English muffin: the red-baiting of the early campaigns; Checkers; the Great Debates of 1960; the comeback in 68; the inheritance and horror of Vietnam; the historic opening to China; the shame of Watergate. In Richard Nixon, John A. Farrell is tough and unyielding, yet gives his subject a fair hearing through each gripping episode. Im not a quitter, Nixon once protested, and this grand, indispensable book proves him right, right to the end. -- Chris Matthews, author of <i>Kennedy & Nixon: the riva

John A. Farrell is the author of Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, and Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post Rave of the Year. As a longtime journalist at The Boston Globe, he worked as White House correspondent, Washington editor, and investigative reporter on the vaunted Spotlight team. His award-winning portrait of Nixon was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography, and earned him the title of American Historian Laureate from the New York Historical Society.