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An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford

Name: An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford
Brand: Harper Paperbacks
SKU: 9780062684172
Price: 20.99 USD
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Contributors:

Richard Norton Smith

Publisher:

Harper Paperbacks

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

Biography & Autobiography, Political Science, History

Book Subcategory:

Presidents & Heads of State, American Government, United States

Book Topic:

Executive Branch, 20th Century

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The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Specifications +

Release Date:

2024-04-09

ISBN 13:

9780062684172

Weight:

1.65 lbs

Size:

8.70 x 5.90 x 1.70 inches

Pages:

848

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

Wall Street Journal Top 10 Best Books of 2023

"Richard Norton Smith had brought a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and storytelling verve to the life of a consequential president--Gerald R. Ford. Ford's is a very American life, and Smith has charted its vicissitudes and import with great grace and illuminating perspective. A marvelous achievement!" -- Jon Meacham

From the preeminent presidential scholar and acclaimed biographer of historical figures including George Washington, Herbert Hoover, and Nelson Rockefeller comes this eye-opening life of Gerald R. Ford, whose presidency arguably set the course for post-liberal America and a post-Cold War world.

For many Americans, President Gerald Ford was the genial accident of history who controversially pardoned his Watergate-tarnished predecessor, presided over the fall of Saigon, and became a punching bag on Saturday Night Live. Yet as Richard Norton Smith reveals in a book full of surprises, Ford was an underrated leader whose tough decisions and personal decency look better with the passage of time.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents, Smith recreates Ford's hardscrabble childhood in Michigan, his early anti-establishment politics and lifelong love affair with the former Betty Bloomer, whose impact on American culture he predicted would outrank his own. As president, Ford guided the nation through its worst Constitutional crisis since the Civil War and broke the back of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression--accomplishing both with little fanfare or credit (at least until 2001 when the JFK Library gave him its prestigious Profile in Courage Award in belated recognition of the Nixon pardon).

Less coda than curtain raiser, Ford's administration bridged the Republican pragmatism of Eisenhower and Nixon and the more doctrinaire conservatism of Ronald Reagan. His introduction of economic deregulation would transform the American economy, while his embrace of the Helsinki Accords hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Illustrated with sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, this definitive biography, a decade in the making, will change history's views of a man whose warning about presidential arrogance ("God help the country") is more relevant than ever.

An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford

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