Review by Choice Review
This book exemplifies revisionism with a vengeance. Jeansonne (Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) seeks to correct the record about Herbert Hoover--especially his luckless presidency--but he also wants readers to like his subject better. At its best, this biography provides a brisk, informed overview of the making of Herbert Hoover. Drawing on Hoover revisionism dating back at least three decades, Jeansonne describes how Hoover distinguished himself as a mining engineer and subsequently through humanitarian work at home and abroad, his tenure as secretary of commerce (1921-29), and in his single term as president (1929-33). In the White House, Hoover responded to the deepening Depression, which Jeansonne links to an international economic crisis, with creative responses that simply did not work. There is merit in elements of this argument. Unfortunately, Jeansonne's enthusiasm for Hoover induces intellectual whiplash. Where some previous scholars dismissed Hoover as rigid and uncaring, Jeansonne idealizes Hoover and extols his ideology while caricaturing Franklin D. Roosevelt as intellectually shallow, pursuing inimical policies while building a politically potent machine. For a more balanced and persuasive treatment of the nation's 31st president, see David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (CH, Jul'79). Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty/professionals. --Michael J. Birkner, Gettysburg College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Herbert hoover is usually ranked near the bottom of American presidents. Glen Jeansonne's biography of the man who was chief executive from 1929 to 1933 is a cri de coeur over what the author sees as a grievous injustice. True, Hoover did preside over the worst economic catastrophe in our nation's history. But in "Herbert Hoover: A Life," he is a fascinating and accomplished individual - the "most versatile American since Benjamin Franklin" - and an idealistic, dynamic president who deserves a better reputation. Born in 1874, Hoover was orphaned by age 9 and experienced a grim, Dickensian upbringing. After working his way through Stanford University, he searched for a postgraduation position in engineering but found only menial jobs, and reached what he called "the bottom levels of real human despair." Jeansonne takes a Panglossian view of Hoover's early tribulations, but a better assessment of his scarred soul was made by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore: "If you put a rose in Hoover's hand, it would wilt." Brighter fortunes arrived when Hoover lucked into a posting as a mine scout in the Australian outback. Operating under grueling, dangerous conditions, he proved his mettle as a manager and efficiency expert. Newly married, he embarked on globe-trotting adventures that included coming under siege during the Boxer Rebellion in China, wandering into a tiger's lair in Burma and building model towns in Siberia. He became a wealthy man who employed more than a million workers. With the outbreak of World War I, Hoover left business for public service. He exercised superb leadership in evacuating American citizens from Britain, then helped save millions of lives by feeding civilians in German-occupied Belgium and averting famines and epidemics in postwar Europe, including Communist Russia. The Great Engineer became internationally famous as the Great Humanitarian; his name was used as a synonym for charity in Finnish. Hoover brought the same technocratic brilliance to government as secretary of commerce under the Republican presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. He was the progressives' favored presidential candidate in 1928 and won a smashing victory. Unfortunately, the stock market crash of 1929 revealed Hoover's limitations. Jeansonne, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, rejects the caricature of an uncaring, do-nothing leader, protesting that he was "one of the kindest men ever to occupy the White House" who "employed every weapon in his fiscal and humanitarian arsenal to combat the Depression." This argument isn't new; for more than half a century, revisionist scholars have made the case that Hoover expanded government in an effort to fight the Depression. Indeed, that's why present-day conservatives don't revere his memory. But unlike Jeansonne, most revisionists have also concluded that Hoover's triumphs in voluntary relief efforts blinded him to the reality that the Depression had exhausted the resources of private charity. The scale of his public works projects and government interventions into the free market was indeed unprecedented in peacetime. But his fidelity to economic orthodoxy and aversion to federal relief for the needy meant that his efforts failed. Jeansonne descends to special pleading when he suggests that federal action cannot end recessions and that government can only redistribute wealth, not create it. He believes that Hoover's ideas remain relevant because his administration was the last to uphold the original American ideal of minimal government. But conservatives have never figured out how to return to that pre-New Deal Eden without suffering huge electoral repudiation on the scale of Hoover's landslide loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Hoover lived on for another three decades, hoping all the while for vindication. Subsequent Republican presidents distanced themselves from him; Ronald Reagan's political model was Hoover's nemesis, Roosevelt. But as Jeansonne and other scholars have demonstrated, Hoover - despite his progressive leanings - pioneered the conservative Republican rhetoric of private enterprise, family and individual freedom threatened by overweening bureaucracy. And it's worth remembering that until Donald Trump, Hoover was the last Republican to win the presidency without a Nixon or Bush on the ticket. ? GEOFFREY KABASERVICE'S latest book is "Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 10, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Hoover bears the dismal historical reputation as the American president who did very little to arrest the economic collapse after the 1929 Wall Street crash; instead, as the thread of criticism generally runs, he assumed the 1920s Republican position of hands-off to let the economy seek its own path to recovery. Jeansonne pushes through this veneer of criticism to conclude that the Depression would have crippled any chief executive, and further, An incumbent elected in 1928 would likely have been defeated in 1932. He sees Hoover as one of the most extraordinary Americans of modern times and writes that he was the most versatile American since Benjamin Franklin. The author's well-expressed supporting arguments result in a brilliant reconstruction of Hoover's long and widely effective pre-presidency career, which included success as a mining engineer and a highly applauded turn at public service in the form of relief work feeding millions of people after WWI and, in Jeansonne's estimation, functioning as one of the country's best commerce secretaries (in the cabinets of presidents Harding and Coolidge). This biography is rounded out by views of his devotion to his wife and children. And as far as the Depression? Hoover does not deserve to be pilloried as the scapegoat. --Hooper, Brad Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Drawing deeply on Hoover's archives and previous biographies, Jeansonne (The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker, 1928-1933), emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, energetically paints a colorful, revisionist portrait of America's oft-maligned 31st president. Jeansonne chronicles Hoover's journey from his Iowa childhood through his years at Stanford, his stints as a successful mining engineer overseas, his humanitarian work helping American refugees stranded in Europe in the early days of WWI, and his election as president in 1928. Soon afterward, the American economy started its spiral into the years of the Great Depression. Rather than fashion a government bureaucracy that would remain in place after the crisis, Hoover supported decentralized programs that operated at a grassroots level. In spite of Hoover's efforts, Jeansonne points out, political critics and the public blamed Hoover for the crash and the subsequent economic hardships, and he lost the 1932 presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Returning to his California home, Hoover was often mocked for his work in the White House, but between defeat and his death in October 1964, Hoover turned his attention to writing, political diplomacy, and humanitarian work. Jeansonne's detailed account presents a novel vision of Hoover and his place in American life. Agent: Bridget Matzie, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Jeansonne (history, Univ. of Wisconsin--Milwaukee; The Life of Herbert Hoover) takes on the formidable task of making stereotypically dour Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) appear winsome. By turns a frontier orphan, engineer, philanthropist, self-made millionaire, world traveler, and avid angler, Hoover served as secretary of commerce in the 1920s and chief executive during the Great Depression. As a cabinet member he was among the first to appear on an experimental TV transmission. With this biography, Jeansonne follows in the path led by historians such as George H. Nash, Gary Dean Best, and William -Leuchtenberg, significantly mining archives at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum and primary sources at the Hoover Institution. The wide-ranging studies on aspects of the reflective Hoover, whose ideology sometimes overcame his pragmatism, and whose politics ranged from progressivism to conservatism, are revealing of his postpresidency career as a prolific author. -VERDICT Jeansonne judiciously and luminously succeeds in making Hoover's beliefs in efficiency, individualism, nationalism, volunteerism, and intervention overseas better known today, rescuing him from the erroneous image of an indifferent, static public figure.-Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) as a lifelong champion of true GOP ideals.In a thorough, overly sympathetic biography, Jeansonne (Emeritus, History/Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) asserts that the Great Humanitarian got a bad rap serving as president during the outbreak of the Great Depression. The author of an earlier work on Hoover (The Life of Herbert Hoover, Fighting Quaker: 1928-1935, 2012), as well as other books on 20th-century history, Jeansonne finds that Hoover cultivated his pure heart as a small-town Iowa Quaker and orphan who grew up in the great outdoors, hence his love of nature and tendency to trust his own instincts. A well-regarded engineer after his Stanford education and married to a professional geologist, Hoover became hugely wealthy from Burma mining interests by age 40. With the onset of World War I, he dedicated his energies to helping feed the starving people of Belgium, among others, under President Woodrow Wilson, and later as commerce secretary under President Warren Harding and his successor, Calvin Coolidge. With his national following at the grass-roots level helping propel him into the White House in 1928, Hoover was a strong proponent of womens suffrage, abided by Prohibition, and worked on disarming the country for a peaceful future. However, his first eight months of whirlwind reform were quickly overshadowed by such economic woes as farm reliefi.e., the vilified Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which the author concedes Hoover would have been wiser to have vetoed. Rather than anything Hoover did or could have done, argues Jeansonne, the stock market crash ultimately did him in. Indeed, Hoover created many measures Franklin Roosevelt would implement, such as large-scale public works. Despite Hoovers prophetic words, he was largely blamed for the economic crash, and he spent much of the rest of his career excoriating the New Deal and advocating for keeping the U.S. out of World War II. A hagiographic survey of an activist president agitating on the wrong side of history. A decent resource, but readers are encouraged to also consult Charles Rappleyes Herbert Hoover in the White House (2016). Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
