Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush

by Jon Meacham

Overview

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “illuminating” (USA Today) biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush.

“Destiny and Power 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

ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781400067657
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/10/2015
Pages:	864
Sales rank:	542,531
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer. The author of the New York Times bestsellers Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Franklin and Winston, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, and The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, he is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, a contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians. Meacham lives in Nashville and in Sewanee with his wife and children.

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Editorial Reviews

It is a measure of Bush's shrewdness that he cooperated so extensively with Jon Meacham on Destiny and Power, allowing his biographer not just access to his diaries and family members but sitting for a series of interviews from 2006 to 2015. Meacham…amply rewards his subject's trust by producing a deeply empathetic, often moving book about the former president and what Bush calls the L-word, his legacy. How does the reader fare in this affectionate transaction between president and biographer? Surprisingly well, since Meacham's access and lack of ideological fervor allow him to paint Bush the man in unusually subtle colors…Destiny and Power reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the personalities who shape it. If Meacham is sometimes polite to a fault, Destiny and Power does not suffer for it. His kinder, gentler approach succeeds in making George H. W. Bush a more sympathetic—and more complex—figure than if the former president had written his own doorstopper…

The New York Times Book Review - Jim Kelly

…absorbing…Mr. Bush may never have achieved greatness. But he's led a long and remarkable life…Such a man can't help but have tremendous stories to tell, and Mr. Meacham, clearly possessed of the same judiciousness and diplomatic skills as his subject, was able to negotiate a king's access to the Bush family and its lieutenants, earning their trust, just as Mr. Bush did with the Soviets…The pleasures of this panoramic book…have little to do with the news it breaks. They're about psychological portraiture, enabled by the artful use of Mr. Bush's diaries—they're surprisingly rich—and the author's many probing interviews with Mr. Bush over the years…For the most part…Mr. Meacham's compassionate approach to telling the story of Mr. Bush's life provides a newfound appreciation for the 41st president.

The New York Times - Jennifer Senior

01/18/2016
America's 41st president shines as a nice guy with an edge of steel in this admiring biography. Pulitzer-winning historian Meacham (American Lion) styles Bush as the embodiment of Greatest Generation virtues: hard-working, dutiful, patriotic, well-mannered, friendly, fair-minded, and increasingly out of step with the ugly partisanship of latter-day politics. But beneath the soft affability he detects a fiercely competitive drive and go-it-alone nerve, especially when Bush decided to risk impeachment by launching the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq even without Congress's authorization. With access to Bush's genial-to-peevish diaries and extensive interviews with Bush, the author paints a warm, evocative portrait of a president who in office was tagged as a wimpy blur, one that supports later historical opinion in saluting his deft pragmatism in navigating the collapse of Soviet communism. But Meacham soft-pedals contradictions in Bush's character, like the very ungentlemanly 1988 presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis; and though Bush inaugurated America's resurgent military interventionism in the Middle East, a geopolitical watershed whose profound repercussions are still playing out, the book asks few serious questions about that troubled legacy. This is a vivid, well-written account that doesn't quite come to grips with its subject's pivotal place in history. Photos. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

06/15/2015
Random House executive editor Meacham lays claim to four New York Times best sellers, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Lion. Here he clarifies what has made George Herbert Walker Bush tick by drawing on exclusive access to the diaries and other documents of Bush and his wife, Barbara, while also placing him in the context of the Bush political dynasty.

Library Journal

2015-11-26
An admiring life of the president who navigated the end game of the Cold War and stood up to Saddam Hussein.The more time that passes from the end of George H.W. Bush's one-term presidency, the more important he seems to grow, perhaps in contrast to the more dynamic and obviously flawed personalities of the presidents that served before and after him. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Meacham (Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, 2012, etc.), working in cooperation with Bush, his wife, Barbara, and their family, does a fine job of revealing the makeup of the man, destined—by virtue of his Eastern Ivy League pedigree and as second son of Prescott Bush, future Connecticut senator—for greatness. Competitive by nature, steady, and dependable—World War II pilot, devoted husband, and loyal Republican Party operative—Bush was decent perhaps to a fault. Americans seem to like their presidents given to grand gestures (see Teddy Roosevelt), but this went against Bush's buttoned-up, discreet style, to his frequent political misfortune. "He was a victim, in a way, of his instinct for dignity," writes Meacham. Bush's innate dignity indeed proved problematic early on with his move to big-oil Texas to set up roots in the late 1950s. The move was an attempt to forge his own destiny apart from his aristocratic East Coast family, but he never quite fit in. Part of Bush's early agony was caused by adopting positions that were far more conservative and right wing than were consistent with his true views—and then having to reverse them. In the end, he emerged from being eclipsed by larger personalities (Reagan, James Baker, Lee Atwater) to forge a steady, effective course during the world perils in Europe, China, and Iraq. In this meticulously researched but perhaps overlong biography, Meacham does his best with this "underwhelming" but noble subject. A revealing biography that should serve as the starting point for future evaluations of the 41st president.

Kirkus Reviews

[Jon] Meacham’s book should be required reading—if not for every presidential candidate, then for every president-elect.”—The Washington Post
 
“Destiny and Power reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the personalities who shape it. If Meacham is sometimes polite to a fault, Destiny and Power does not suffer for it. His kinder, gentler approach succeeds in making George H. W. Bush a more sympathetic—and more complex—figure than if the former president had written his own doorstopper after all.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Jon Meacham, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Andrew Jackson, put an enormous amount of work into this volume: nine years of interviews, full access to the diaries of George H. W. and Barbara Bush, and an open door to family members and friends. Add to this Meacham’s balanced journalism and smooth writing, and you have a fascinating biography of the forty-first president.”—The Dallas Morning News
 
“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
 
“Graceful prose, backed by diligent mining of the archives and access to an oral diary that Bush dictated throughout his presidency . . . 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
 
“Meacham is a superb historian and he weaves a compelling historical narrative, drawing heavily on Bush’s own contemporaneous diaries. The result is a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into high-stakes decision making in a rapidly evolving world.”—The Seattle Times
 
“Through one man’s long journey through politics, we see America’s changing attitudes toward power and duty.”—Time
 
“Illuminating . . . written from Bush’s perspective but with a journalist’s rigor . . . George and Barbara Bush have provided extraordinary cooperation [for] an account of his life and presidency that has depth and value.”—USA Today (4 out of 4 stars)

“A gripping new biography of the forty-first president.”—The Economist

“Meticulously researched . . . a revealing biography that should serve as the starting point for future evaluations of the forty-first president.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“A vivid, well-written account.”—Publishers Weekly

“The more time passes, the more the dust settles, the clearer it becomes that George H. W. Bush and the strengths of character he brought to his long service to this country deserve more attention and appreciation. And now comes Destiny and Power, Jon Meacham’s altogether fair, insightful biography of the forty-first president—a portrait made especially compelling by the author’s remarkable access to Bush’s private White House diaries. This is a timely, first-rate book!”—David McCullough
 
“What a spectacular and moving portrait this is—not only of a remarkably classy man but of the era that shaped him! It is hard to imagine a biographer more fitted than Jon Meacham to write what will surely be the definitive work on George Herbert Walker Bush.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin

“This astonishing book is both timely and timeless. Based on candid interviews and intimate letters and diaries, it provides a deep insight into the character of George H. W. Bush, flavored with colorful anecdotes depicting his relationships with people ranging from Gorbachev and Reagan to his sons George and Jeb. The result is a fascinating and insightful portrayal of the life of an exemplary American citizen.”—Walter Isaacson
 
“Jon Meacham’s timely and intimate biography of George Bush 41 is a welcome reminder of this modest president’s call to service, from the cockpits of World War II to the Oval Office and the end of the Cold War. Here you’ll meet a man of patrician manners, wartime heroics, Texas assimilation, party and personal loyalty, with a refined sense of power that carried him into history. Meet the George Bush you didn’t know.”—Tom Brokaw
 
“This riveting biography by the incomparable Jon Meacham gives George H. W. Bush his well-deserved place in history. Destiny and Power is full of surprises, revealing 41’s important role in scene after crucial historical scene of the past seven decades. President Bush used to say that he could never quite convey his “heartbeat” to Americans. Now, using a treasure of heretofore unseen diaries and other documents, as well as his own detailed interviews, Meacham takes us behind closed doors to show us what this sometimes misunderstood leader was really like.”—Michael Beschloss

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