
Being Nixon
A Man Divided
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Narrated by:
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Bob Walter
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By:
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Evan Thomas
About this listen
The landmark New York Times best-selling biography of Richard M. Nixon, a political savant whose gaping character flaws would drive him from the presidency and forever taint his legacy.
“A biography of eloquence and breadth... No single volume about Nixon’s long and interesting life could be so comprehensive.” (Chicago Tribune)
One of Time’s Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Year
In this revelatory biography, Evan Thomas delivers a radical, unique portrait of America’s 37th president, Richard Nixon, a contradictory figure who was both determinedly optimistic and tragically flawed. One of the principal architects of the modern Republican Party and its “silent majority” of disaffected whites and conservative ex-Dixiecrats, Nixon was also deemed a liberal in some quarters for his efforts to desegregate Southern schools, create the Environmental Protection Agency, and end the draft.
The son of devout Quakers, Richard Nixon (not unlike his rival John F. Kennedy) grew up in the shadow of an older, favored brother and thrived on conflict and opposition. Through high school and college, in the navy and in politics, Nixon was constantly leading crusades and fighting off enemies real and imagined. He possessed the plainspoken eloquence to reduce American television audiences to tears with his career-saving “Checkers” speech; meanwhile, Nixon’s darker half hatched schemes designed to take down his political foes, earning him the notorious nickname “Tricky Dick.” Drawing on a wide range of historical accounts, Thomas’ biography reveals the contradictions of a leader whose vision and foresight led him to achieve détente with the Soviet Union and reestablish relations with communist China, but whose underhanded political tactics tainted his reputation long before the Watergate scandal.
A deeply insightful character study as well as a brilliant political biography, Being Nixon offers a surprising look at a man capable of great bravery and extraordinary deviousness - a balanced portrait of a president too often reduced to caricature.
Praise for Being Nixon
“Terrifically engaging...a fair, insightful and highly entertaining portrait.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“Thomas has a fine eye for the telling quote and the funny vignette, and his style is eminently readable.” (The New York Times Book Review)
©2015 Evan Thomas (P)2015 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A biography of eloquence and breadth... No single volume about Nixon’s long and interesting life could be so comprehensive.” (Chicago Tribune)
“How self-aware are the great men of history? That’s the fascinating question at the heart of Evan Thomas’s new book on Richard Nixon.... Here in one sharp and briskly written volume is what you really want to know about the great and horrible thirty-seventh President: How could someone so wise about the world be so utterly clueless about himself?... [Nixon] is revealed in Thomas’s hands as awkward, striving, victimized and alone - strange habits for a man who opted for such a public life, and traits that carried the seeds of his destruction.” (Time)
“Ambitious... Thomas’s book is filled with anecdotes that humanize Nixon. There are pages suggesting real insight and, especially, how the president was seen by those around him.... There are well-crafted word-pictures of Nixon throughout the narrative, from his legendary awkwardness to his catastrophic frustration and vindictive rage.” (Carl Bernstein, The Washington Post)
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Story
Based largely on documents declassified in only the last few years, One Man Against the World paints a devastating portrait of a tortured yet brilliant man who led the country largely according to a deep-seated insecurity and distrust of not only his cabinet and Congress but the American population at large. In riveting, tick-tock prose, Weiner illuminates how the Vietnam War and the Watergate controversy that brought about Nixon's demise were inextricably linked.
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A worthy listen, if a bit sensationalized.
- By Reza on 06-20-15
By: Tim Weiner
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Nixon's Secrets
- By: Roger Stone, Mike Colapietro
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Learn the inside scoop on Watergate, the Ford Pardon, and the 18-minute Gap. Roger Stone, The New York Times best-selling author of The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, gives the inside scoop on Nixon’s rise and fall in Watergate in his new book Nixon’s Secrets. Stone charts Nixon’s rise from election to Congress in 1946 to the White House in 1968 after his razor-thin loss to John Kennedy in 1960, his disastrous campaign for Governor of California in 1962, and the greatest comeback in American Presidential history.
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Great book but....
- By Alan on 11-20-14
By: Roger Stone, and others
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An Unfinished Life
- John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
- By: Robert Dallek
- Narrated by: Richard McGonagle
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Abridged
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An Unfinished Life is the first authoritative single-volume life of John F. Kennedy to be written by a historian in nearly four decades. Drawing upon firsthand sources, freshly unearthed documents, and never-before-opened archives, prizewinning historian Robert Dallek reveals more than we ever knew about Jack Kennedy forever changing the way we think about his life, his presidency, and his legacy.
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It’s abridged!!
- By Brad on 02-17-18
By: Robert Dallek
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The Wise Men
- Six Friends and the World They Made
- By: Evan Thomas, Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Reese
- Length: 33 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Six close friends shaped the role their country would play in the dangerous years following World War II. They were the original best and brightest, whose towering intellects, outsize personalities, and dramatic actions would bring order to the postwar chaos, and whose strong response to Soviet expansionism would leave a legacy that dominates American policy to this day. In April 1945, they converged to advise an untutored new president, Harry Truman.
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Dull with poor narration
- By KD6161 on 03-31-17
By: Evan Thomas, and others
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His Very Best
- Jimmy Carter, a Life
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 31 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in one of the meanest counties in the Jim Crow South, Carter is the only American president who essentially lived in three centuries: his early life on the farm in the 1920s without electricity or running water might as well have been in the nineteenth; his presidency put him at the center of major events in the twentieth; and his efforts on conflict resolution and global health set him on the cutting edge of the challenges of the 21st.
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Unbiased biography of a complex president
- By P Willis on 10-08-20
By: Jonathan Alter
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Ascent to Power
- How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World
- By: David L. Roll
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning the years of transition, 1944 to 1948, Ascent to Power illuminates Truman’s struggles to emerge as president in his own right. Yet, from a relatively unknown Missouri senator to the most powerful man on Earth, Truman’s legacy transcends. With his come-from-behind campaign in the fall of 1948, his courageous civil rights advocacy, and his role in liberating millions from militarist governments and brutal occupations, Truman’s decisions during these pivotal years changed the course of the world in ways so significant we live with them today.
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Truman defeated Republican use of Dark Psychology
- By sunao mind☯️ heart ❤️ on 01-30-25
By: David L. Roll
Excellent and Well Balanced
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I was able to empathize with the early Nixon, in that I am also clumsy and sometimes feel uncertain in social situations. So having come to empathize with him, I was disappointed to learn how vindictive he became and how much he lost his moral compass as president. Yet I had always thought of him as villain, so I shouldn't have been surprised.
The book also helped me to appreciative Nixon's accomplishments as president, especially in foreign policy.
Bob Walter did an excellent job of capturing Nixon's cadence.
There were some funny parts that had me laughing out loud.
Gave me a deeper perspective on Nixon & Watergate
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Very interesting perspective
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Very baritone voice over
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A mind changing book
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Well written-worth listening to
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Intimate and revealing.
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That Narrator though!
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Loved this book!
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Sweeping and masterful
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