Necessary or no, Mr. Aldous’s biography is full of interest, not least on the subject of the relation of intellectuals to power. As a biographer, Mr. Aldous’s prose is cool and even-handed, though from time to time he lapses into such overworked and imprecise vogue words as 'charismatic,' 'optics,' 'take' (for 'view') and the invariably hyperbolic “seminal.” His own politics, pleasing to report, do not come into play, and at the end of his book one doesn’t know what they might be. He is properly critical of his subject’s self-justifications and no less properly skeptical about the putative integrity of politicians ... The Imperial Historian is especially good on the inner conflicts of presidential politics.
...no 20th-century American intellectual devoted himself to that purpose more consistently than the subject of the new biography Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian. The question is whether his achievements matched his ambition ...Aldous gracefully balances an appreciation for his subject’s talents as a writer of narratives and speeches with an acknowledgment of his shortcomings as a political analyst and aide ...misses an opportunity to examine how Schlesinger’s gradual loss of intellectual influence mirrored the crisis of American liberalism itself ... Schlesinger’s liberal panegyrics can still be read with pleasure, even if one winces at his reluctance to abide any serious criticism of his idols.
Schlesinger is not quite a full treatment: The book has much less to say about his scholarship, despite its enduring influence, than his 'near addiction to the narcotic of political battle,' as Aldous puts it, and devotes fewer than 30 pages to the last four decades of his life, productive though they were. That aside, it is a convincing portrait, rendered with skill and sensitivity, sympathetic toward its subject while capturing the quirks that made him, in the words of one contemporary, 'so Arthurish.'
...[a] compellingly narrated and well-researched biography ... Aldous does not focus on these years with the same level of intensity or care for detail that he directs toward Schlesinger’s earlier years, dedicating only 50 or so pages to the last four decades of his life. One can understand why: Schlesinger’s salad days ran parallel to the heyday of mid-20th–century liberalism; they were more exciting times, at least for Schlesinger. But one suspects that Aldous, a contributing editor to The American Interest, is also more interested in tracking liberal realism’s rise instead of its fall. Nonetheless, despite the brevity of Aldous’s last chapters, one does get the sense that Schlesinger was trying, in his later years, to come to terms with the bellicose liberalism he’d championed much of his life.
Readers learn only as much as they need to know about Schlesinger’s relationships with his parents, his two wives, and his five children. Whatever one’s opinion of Schlesinger as a political thinker, few will dispute Aldous’s concluding assessment of him 'as one of the finest narrative historians America has ever produced.' It’s a judicious, balanced account that focuses on the high points of Schlesinger’s career.
The result is a very readable distillation of a long and fruitful life ... But Schlesinger wasn’t just a famous man. First and foremost he was a serious historian. And that, oddly, is the subject on which Aldous has the least to say. He summarizes the oeuvre and provides a scorecard of contemporary reviews. But he skims the surface of the Faustian bargain Schlesinger made with power and goes light, too, on his ideas and arguments. Often Aldous seems less stimulated than embarrassed by his subject.
It is a quality of perception that distinguished Schlesinger’s best historical writing, and it helps Aldous illuminate that writing as well as Schlesinger’s political forays. Aldous clearly respects Schlesinger’s politics, but his detachment gives him room to criticize without sanctimony and to empathize without evasion. His book helps reveal why Schlesinger mattered so much to the history of modern American liberalism, a history and a politics now badly in need of rescue and repair ... Aldous effectively describes the turf-war intrigue and the ricochet of egos among Kennedy’s aides and appointees, intramural struggles in which Schlesinger, with all his cleverness, did not always prevail ... Liberals are left to pick up that challenge as best they can. It is well to remember that Schlesinger never renounced the label of “liberal” or lost his tough-minded and undogmatic fighting spirit. Because he so deeply grasped liberalism’s history, he was able to make a good deal of it himself.
Aldous brings the man and his extraordinary life of influence and controversy vividly to life in his meticulously researched and consistently enlightening Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian ... [an] insightful and engaging look at one of the most influential historians of his time.
