Whyte summons us to see Hoover as a human personality, more than just a walking embodiment of Great Depression studies. Hoover’s personality was the product of origins and early career that Whyte attentively details ... Whatever else the Trump presidency is doing and has done, it has closed the book on that old 'new conservatism.' It’s early to perceive what will succeed it, but it won’t be that. And when the time for succession comes, Hoover’s old party could learn things from his impressive career of public service. Among the great services of Ken Whyte’s elegant, lively, and witty biography is its unceasing reminder of this other Hoover ... To understand Hoover’s life, career, and his legacy in full, this rich new biography will certainly prove indispensable.
...an exemplary biography—exhaustively researched, fair-minded and easy to read. It can nestle on the same shelf as David McCullough’s Truman, a high compliment indeed ... Mr. Whyte is neutral almost to a fault in his judgment of Hoover, particularly the choices he made as president and beyond. However brilliant the man, he managed time and again to put himself on the wrong side of history, his inescapable legacy.
Whyte is an impressive stylist with a penchant for explaining political history to contemporary readers. This well-researched volume proves that Hoover, far from being a political failure, should be rightfully acknowledged as the father of New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism.
Hoover was doomed to be remembered as the man who was too rigidly conservative to react adeptly to the Depression, as the hapless foil to the great Franklin Roosevelt, and as the politician who managed to turn a Republican country into a Democratic one ... [Hoover] helpfully lays out a long and copious résumé that doesn’t fit on this stamp of dismissal ... Whyte, however unsympathetic he finds Hoover personally, is almost entirely on his side as a policymaker—not least when it comes to his handling of the economic crisis that began a few months into his Presidency.
Whyte now makes a convincing case for the reassessment of our 31st president in his outstanding new biography ... This well organized, thoroughly researched, and smoothly written biography persuasively demonstrates that its subject’s place in history should be elevated far beyond its current status.
...a clear-eyed, sympathetic portrayal ... Whyte doesn’t shy away from these seedier aspects of Hoover’s life, but nor is he judgmental ... With adept explanations of the Depression’s complexities and a refreshing sense of objectivity regarding Hoover’s approach to combatting it, Whyte portrays a figure to be neither pitied nor reviled, but better understood.
A thoughtful resurrection of a brilliant man who, aside from the Founding Fathers, did more good before taking office than any other president in American history.
