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Herbert Hoover in the White House : the ordeal of the presidency / Charles Rappleye.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2016Copyright date: ©2016Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover editionDescription: xx, 554 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781451648676
  • 1451648677
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Part I. The rise and fall of Herbert Hoover -- He did not choose -- A political diptych -- Flashpoints, and a landslide -- "Hoover the silent" -- Bright with hope -- The Wall Street Frankenstein -- The special session -- The crash -- The president's hair shirts -- "The peculiar weakness of Mr. Hoover" -- Part II. War on a thousand fronts -- Challenging facts -- Friction at the Fed -- The ground gives way -- Playing politics with human misery -- The ghost of Grover Cleveland -- Credit crunch -- The Gibraltar of world stability -- Reconstruction -- Part III. The bitter end -- Roosevelt rising -- The conflicted candidate -- Evil magic -- President reject -- Interregnum -- The sound of crashing banks.
Summary: Describes the uphill battle faced by the thirty-first president, who served his single term during the Great Depression, portraying the man as bright, well-meaning, and energetic but ultimately lacking in the tools of leadership. --Publisher
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 973.916 R221 Available 33111008395580
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A deft, filled-out portrait of the thirty-first president...by far the best, most readable study of Hoover's presidency to date." -- Publishers Weekly

Rappleye's surprising portrait of a Depression-era president Herbert Hoover reveals a very different figure than the usual Hoover, engaged and active but loathe to experiment and conscious of his inability to convey hope to the country.

Herbert Clark Hoover was the thirty-first President of the United States. He served one term, from 1929 to 1933. Often considered placid, passive, unsympathetic, and even paralyzed by national events, Hoover faced an uphill battle in the face of the Great Depression. Many historians dismiss him as merely ineffective. But in Herbert Hoover in the White House, Charles Rappleye draws on rare and intimate sources--memoirs and diaries and thousands of documents kept by members of his cabinet and close advisors--to reveal a very different figure than the one often portrayed. The real Hoover, argues Rappleye, just lacked the tools of leadership.

The Hoover presented here will come as a surprise to both his longtime defenders and his many critics. In public Hoover was shy and retiring, but in private he is revealed as a man of passion and sometimes of fury, a man who intrigued against his enemies while fulminating over plots against him. Rappleye describes him as more sophisticated and more active in economic policy than is often acknowledged. We see Hoover watching a sunny (and he thought ignorant) FDR on the horizon. FDR did not "cure" the depression, but he experimented with steps that relieved it. Most importantly he broke the mood of doom almost immediately. The Hoover we see here--bright, well meaning, energetic--lacked the single critical element to succeed as president. He had a first-class mind and a second-class temperament.

Herbert Hoover in the White House is an object lesson in the most , perhaps only , talent needed to be a successful president--the temperament of leadership.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. The rise and fall of Herbert Hoover -- He did not choose -- A political diptych -- Flashpoints, and a landslide -- "Hoover the silent" -- Bright with hope -- The Wall Street Frankenstein -- The special session -- The crash -- The president's hair shirts -- "The peculiar weakness of Mr. Hoover" -- Part II. War on a thousand fronts -- Challenging facts -- Friction at the Fed -- The ground gives way -- Playing politics with human misery -- The ghost of Grover Cleveland -- Credit crunch -- The Gibraltar of world stability -- Reconstruction -- Part III. The bitter end -- Roosevelt rising -- The conflicted candidate -- Evil magic -- President reject -- Interregnum -- The sound of crashing banks.

Describes the uphill battle faced by the thirty-first president, who served his single term during the Great Depression, portraying the man as bright, well-meaning, and energetic but ultimately lacking in the tools of leadership. --Publisher

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