Synopses & Reviews
In this brilliant biography, Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize–winning
author, chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush. Drawing on
President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara,
and on extraordinary access to the forty-first president and his family,
Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely
private man who led the nation through tumultuous times. From the Oval
Office to Camp David, from his study in the private quarters of the
White House to Air Force One, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the
first Gulf War to the end of Communism, Destiny and Power charts
the thoughts, decisions, and emotions of a modern president who may have
been the last of his kind. This is the human story of a man who was,
like the nation he led, at once noble and flawed.
His was one of
the great American lives. Born into a loving, privileged, and
competitive family, Bush joined the navy on his eighteenth birthday and
at age twenty was shot down on a combat mission over the Pacific. He
married young, started a family, and resisted pressure to go to Wall
Street, striking out for the adventurous world of Texas oil. Over the
course of three decades, Bush would rise from the chairmanship of his
county Republican Party to serve as congressman, ambassador to the
United Nations, head of the Republican National Committee, envoy to
China, director of Central Intelligence, vice president under Ronald
Reagan, and, finally, president of the United States. In retirement he
became the first president since John Adams to see his son win the
ultimate prize in American politics.
With access not only to the
Bush diaries but, through extensive interviews, to the former president
himself, Meacham presents Bush’s candid assessments of many of the
critical figures of the age, ranging from Richard Nixon to Nancy Reagan;
Mao to Mikhail Gorbachev; Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld; Henry
Kissinger to Bill Clinton. Here is high politics as it really is but as
we rarely see it.
From the Pacific to the presidency, Destiny and Power
charts the vicissitudes of the life of this quietly compelling American
original. Meacham sheds new light on the rise of the right wing in the
Republican Party, a shift that signaled the beginning of the end of the
center in American politics. Destiny and Power is an affecting portrait of a man who, driven by destiny and by duty, forever sought, ultimately, to put the country first.
Review
“The story of the forty-first man to hold the office sheds light not only on the country we were, but the one we’ve become.” Los Angeles Times
Review
“When we rank, reconsider, laud, or denounce past Presidents, living or
dead, we are taking stock of our own times. In that sense, the
vindication of George H. W. Bush is a reflection of what we know we’ve
lost. Jon Meacham’s new biography of Bush, Destiny and Power, makes that plain from its very first pages.” The New Yorker
Review
“A fascinating biography of the forty-first president.” The Dallas Morning News
Review
“Reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious,
balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the
personalities who shape it.” The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Should be required reading — if not for every presidential candidate, then for every president-elect.” The Washington Post
About the Author
Jon Meacham received the Pulitzer Prize for his 2008 biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion. An executive editor at Random House, he is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, American Gospel, and Franklin and Winston.
Meacham, who teaches at Vanderbilt University and at The University of
the South, is a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He lives
in Nashville and in Sewanee with his wife and children.