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Present Tense: A Radiohead Compendium
by Barney Hoskyns'Present Tense is an anthology to savour . . . giving you as sharp a portrait of this unknowable band as you could hope for . . . Radiohead fans will love it' Classic RockA Rock's Backpages anthology of Radiohead, the most radical and fascinating rock band in modern music history, edited and introduced by Barney Hoskyns.For over 25 years, Radiohead have been the most radical and fascinating rock band in the world. Fearless in their desire to change and shape-shift, the Oxfordshire quintet has - through the nine studio albums from 1993's Pablo Honey to 2016's A Moon-Shaped Pool - consistently stretched the boundaries of what 'rock' means and does. Anchored in Thom Yorke's soaring voice and elliptical lyrics, and in the compositional genius of guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead continue to astonish as they approach their fourth decade.Present Tense collects the best writing on this most literate of pop groups, from the earliest local reports about On A Friday - Radiohead's first moniker - through the inspired commentary of Mark Greif and Simon Reynolds to the trenchant profiles of Will Self, John Harris and others. It's an anthology that goes a long way towards explaining what Rock's Backpages editor Barney Hoskyns describes as the band's 'seriousness, emotional grandeur and willingness to stare humanity's dystopian hi-tech future in the face'.
El presente como historia
by Álvaro Tirado MejiaLas memorias de Álvaro Tirado Mejía Pocas veces en Colombia un historiador ha tenido la oportunidad de ser a la vez testigo y actor del acontecer político nacional e internacional como Álvaro Tirado Mejía, cuya rica vida intelectual y diplomática ha quedado consignada en estas esclarecedoras memorias. En ellas, el autor se refiere a hitos que marcaron el panorama mundial y colombiano del siglo XX, como el surgimiento del nadaísmo, la Guerra Fría, la Revolución Cultural china, la creación del Frente Nacional y las negociaciones de paz con el M-19 y el EPL. También reconstruye sus encuentros con grandes figuras como Gabriel García Márquez, Héctor Abad Gómez, Camilo Torres Restrepo, Luis Carlos Galán, Willy Brandt, Pierre Vilar, Patricio Aylwin, Alejo Carpentier y Julio Cortázar, entre muchas otras, y recuerda a colegas y amigos suyos que murieron en el torbellino de violencia en que se ha visto inmerso el país. Al adentrarse en estas memorias sinceras y críticas, el lector conocerá la vida y circunstancias de un intelectual que contribuyó a renovar la historiografía de Colombia y podrá tener una visión más profunda de momentos y personajes definitivos tanto para él como para muchos de sus contemporáneos.
Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented The Wild West
by Candace FlemingEveryone knows the name Buffalo Bill, but few these days know what he did or, in some cases, didn't do. Was he a Pony Express rider? Did he serve Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn? Did he scalp countless Native Americans, or did he defend their rights?<P><P> This, the first significant biography of Buffalo Bill Cody for younger readers in many years, explains it all. Presenting Buffalo Bill makes the great showman come alive for new generations. Extensive back matter, bibliography, and source notes complete the package.
Presenting Oprah Winfrey, Her Films, and African American Literature
by Tara T. GreenOprah Winfrey has long promoted black issues by being involved as a producer or actor in the adaptation of works by African American writers for film. This volume evaluates Winfrey's involvement in the visual interpretation of African American literary texts using film, music, black masculinity, black feminist, and cultural theory.
The Presidency: A Historical Reader
by Ethel WoodEssays by a variety of historians on different Presidents and their effects on American history.
A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama's Promise, Wall Street's Power, and the Struggle to Control Our Economic Future
by Robert KuttnerAs with many progressives who had pinned their hopes on the promise of Barack Obama, Kuttner (co-editor of The American Prospect magazine) has become disappointed with President Obama's failure to deliver transformational change in the realm of US economic policy. He delivers a work of reportage, analysis, and critique that seeks to understand the reasons for Obama's basic acquiescence to the priorities of Wall Street over those of Main Street and his failure to push for strong financial regulation in the face of economic crisis. Although he is critical of Obama's economic performance in the first two years, he holds out hope that the President may yet salvage his legacy and offers advice on how Obama could go about redeeming his presidency. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
A Presidency in Peril
by Robert KuttnerAs with many progressives who had pinned their hopes on the promise of Barack Obama, Kuttner (co-editor of The American Prospect magazine) has become disappointed with President Obama's failure to deliver transformational change in the realm of US economic policy. He delivers a work of reportage, analysis, and critique that seeks to understand the reasons for Obama's basic acquiescence to the priorities of Wall Street over those of Main Street and his failure to push for strong financial regulation in the face of economic crisis. Although he is critical of Obama's economic performance in the first two years, he holds out hope that the President may yet salvage his legacy and offers advice on how Obama could go about redeeming his presidency. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment
by Julian E. Zelizer, EditorLeading historians provide perspective on Trump’s four turbulent years in the White HouseThe Presidency of Donald J. Trump presents a first draft of history by offering needed perspective on one of the nation’s most divisive presidencies. Acclaimed political historian Julian Zelizer brings together many of today’s top scholars to provide balanced and strikingly original assessments of the major issues that shaped the Trump presidency.When Trump took office in 2017, he quickly carved out a loyal base within an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, dominated the news cycle with an endless stream of controversies, and presided over one of the most contentious one-term presidencies in American history. These essays cover the crucial aspects of Trump’s time in office, including his administration’s close relationship with conservative media, his war on feminism, the solidification of a conservative women’s movement, his response to COVID-19, the border wall, growing tensions with China and NATO allies, white nationalism in an era of Black Lives Matter, and how the high-tech sector flourished.The Presidency of Donald J. Trump reveals how Trump was not the cause of the political divisions that defined his term in office but rather was a product of long-term trends in Republican politics and American polarization more broadly.With contributions by Kathleen Belew, Angus Burgin, Geraldo Cadava, Merlin Chowkwanyun, Bathsheba Demuth, Gregory Downs, Jeffrey Engel, Beverly Gage, Nicole Hemmer, Michael Kazin, Daniel C. Kurtzer, James Mann, Mae Ngai, Margaret O’Mara, Jason Scott Smith, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Leandra Zarnow.
The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower
by Elmo RichardsonThe focus of this revision is not how Eisenhower made policy, but how his decisions shaped American life in the 1950s and beyond. In this first post-revisionist study of the Eisenhower presidency, historian Chester Pach reaches beyond the issues the revisionists raised: Was Eisenhower in command of his own administration? Did he play a significant role in shaping foreign and domestic policy? Drawing on the wide range of works published within the past decade, Pach expands Elmo Richardson's 1979 study by nearly one third. In addition to new material on national security policy, Pach deepens the analysis of Eisenhower's leadership and managerial style and explores the significance of the decisions Eisenhower made on a whole range of critical issues, from civil rights to atomic testing. By emphasizing the fundamental failings of Eisenhower's presidency, Pach swims against the stream of recent scholarship. He concludes, for example, that Eisenhower's commitment to support South Vietnam in 1954, with its attendant responsibilities and consequences, was far more important—and ultimately disastrous—than his refusal to intervene with military force in support of the French in 1954. Eisenhower's unleashing of the CIA (in Iran, Guatemala, and elsewhere) also draws sharp criticism, as does his timid and ineffective handling of McCarthy.
The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (American Presidency Series)
by Lewis L. GouldEight decades after he left the White House, Theodore Roosevelt remains the most exciting of the twentieth-century presidents. Candidates evoke the name of "Teddy" Roosevelt to show that they are strong in foreign policy and devoted to the environment. His phrases—the "bully pulpit," the "big stick," and the "strenuous life"—are part of the language. Roosevelt was more than an important contributor to the evolution of the modern institution of the presidency. He personalized the office in a way that had not occurred since Andrew Jackson. In many respects, none of Roosevelt's successors since 1909 has equaled his impact on the popular mind. Accounts of Roosevelt's life usually emphasize the departures that he made in how the presidency was conducted. While he brought freshness, youth, and energy to his duties, he did not work in a historical vacuum. William McKinley had revitalized the office between 1897 and 1901, and Roosevelt built on those accomplishments. In time his flair and charisma eclipsed the work of his predecessor. Nonetheless, Roosevelt was a key player in a general strengthening of the presidency that took place during the quarter century after the election of 1896. It does not diminish his record to recognize that he was never the sole architect of the modern presidency in its formative stage.
The Presidency Of William McKinley
by Lewis L. GouldIn this interpretation of the McKinley presidency Lewis L. Gould contends that William McKinley was the first modern president. Making use of extensive original research in manuscript collections in the United States, Great Britain, and France, Gould argues that during McKinley's four and a half years in the White House the executive office began to resemble the institution as the twentieth century would know it. He rejects the erroneous stereotypes that have long obscured McKinley's historical significance: McKinley as the compliant agent of Mark Hanna or as an irresolute executive in the Cuban crisis that led to war with Spain. He contends that McKinley is an important figure in the history of the United States because of the large contributions he made to the strengthening and broadening of the power of the chief executive. While this volume touches on many aspects of McKinley's leadership, the core of it relates to the coming of the Spanish-American War, the president's conduct of the war itself, and the emergence of an American empire from 1898 to 1900. According to Gould, the Spanish-American War was not the result presidential weakness or of cowardice before public hysteria. McKinley sought to persuade Spain to relinquish Cuba peacefully, turning to war only when it became apparent that Madrid would never acquiesce. During the war, McKinley effectively directed the American military effort and the diplomacy that brought territorial acquisitions and peace. The process of making peace with Spain--involving, as it did, American annexation of the Philippines--and of securing the ratification of the resulting treaty in the Senate underscored McKinley's expansive view of presidential power. He functioned as chief diplomat, from the sending of senators on the peace commission to the personal supervision of the terms of the negotiation. At home he made tours of the West and South in 1898 to lead popular opinion to his position as no president had done before him. For the Senate he evidenced a readiness to dispense patronage, woo votes with personal persuasion, and marshal the resources of the political system behind his treaty. Later episodes in McKinley's administration support Gould's thesis. In administering Puerto Rico and Cuba and in suppressing an insurrection in the Philippines, McKinley relied further on the war power and continued to shape affairs from the White House. He sent troops to china during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 without congressional authorization, governed the new possessions through presidential commissions, and allowed Capitol Hill only a subsidiary role in the process. By 1901 the nation had an empire and a president whose manner and bearing anticipated the imperial executives of six decades later. Gould does not argue that McKinley was a great president. He maintains, instead, that what McKinley contributed to the office, the examples he offered and the precedents he set make him an important figure in the emergence of the modern presidency in this century.
The President: A Minute-by-minute Account of a Week in the Life of Gerald Ford
by John HerseyThe President has given me permission to take a kind of voyage with him—to watch him closely through a working week….I will be with him, most of the time, hour in and hour out…. At 8:33 on a rainy Monday in March, 1975, John Hersey sits down on a straight cane-backed chair in the Oval Office to begin soaking up impressions of what happens—in post-Watergate Washington—at the center of American power. Through five and a half days, he will stay close to the President, observing him as he consults with his own staff, with members of Congress, with his Cabinet, with Rockefeller; watching him on the exercise bike, at the barber’s, greeting Miss America: absorbing his confidences as he talks after dinner, in the private quarters of the White House, about his childhood and about his college years when it was difficult to make ends meet. Following the President, Hersey observes in detail all the important moments—as well as the incidental ones—that show what Gerald Ford is like on the job. In this extraordinary book he builds a brilliant and revealing portrait, letting the reader see Ford’s strengths and limitations. And so perceptively does Hersey draw significance from his observations that the insights seem to explode like time bombs. I have seen all week that it is not easy for Gerald Ford…to make what he refers to, in the language of umpires, as “a tough call.” Yet once he has made such a decision, he does not agonize…he becomes convinced of its rightness and is stubborn in its defense…. In reading The President, each of us emerges knowing more than ever before, not only about this imperturbable “iron” man, the first President we did not elect, but also about how the Presidency really operates. In John Hersey’s report we come to understand—the man, and the things that persuade him. And we come to sense…how good it would be if in some way he could speak—good listener that he is—one-to-one with ordinary men and women, his constituents, from whom he has somehow drifted so far away.
The President and the Apprentice
by Irwin F. Gellman"Irwin Gellman has emerged from years in the archives to tell the fascinating story of President Dwight Eisenhower and his relationship with his vice president, Richard Nixon. Gellman dispels the fog that has long enveloped this subject and casts new light on a critical Cold War presidency. Masterfully written, The President and the Apprentice is a must-read for anyone who, like me, loves good political history. "--Allen Matusow, author of The Unraveling of America More than half a century after Eisenhower left office, the history of his presidency is so clouded by myth, partisanship, and outright fraud that most people have little understanding of how Ike's administration worked or what it accomplished. We know--or think we know--that Eisenhower distrusted his vice president, Richard Nixon, and kept him at arm's length; that he did little to advance civil rights; that he sat by as Joseph McCarthy's reckless anticommunist campaign threatened to wreck his administration; and that he planned the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. None of this is true. The President and the Apprentice reveals a different Eisenhower, and a different Nixon. Ike trusted and relied on Nixon, sending him on many sensitive overseas missions. Eisenhower, not Truman, completed the desegregation of the military. Eisenhower and Nixon, not Lyndon Johnson, pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through the Senate. Eisenhower was determined to bring down McCarthy and did so. Nixon never, contrary to recent accounts, saw a psychotherapist, but while Ike was recovering from his heart attack in 1955, Nixon was overworked, overanxious, overmedicated, and at the limits of his ability to function. Based on twenty years of research in numerous archives, many previously untouched, this book offers a fresh and surprising account of the Eisenhower presidency. "Irwin Gellman's superb research and plausible reconstruction of the Eisenhower-Nixon relationship may well revolutionize the meaning of historical revisionism. The President and the Apprentice is an unsettling tour de force. "--David Levering Lewis, author of King: A Biography and W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography
The President and the Provocateur
by Alex CoxPresident John F. Kennedy was said to have been murdered by a lone crazed gunman in a Dallas motorcade a half-century ago. The accused killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was also murdered under mysterious circumstances just a couple days later.Alex Cox, like most of the American public, does not buy into the moth-eaten establishment tale about the regicide. The President and the Provocateur is not the usual conspiracy volume, and is structured almost like the film Rashomon, including varying views of the story with different fonts and sizes.The Kennedy assassination saga has obsessed filmmaker Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy) for most of his life. The President and The Provocateur is Cox's informed meditation on the conspiratorial tale, and as such is an imaginative rendering of the parallel structures of the lives of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald.Cox's films are available from the renowned distributors Criterion and Anchor Bay. They include Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, and Walker.
President Carter: The White House Years
by Stuart E. Eizenstat Madeleine AlbrightThe definitive history of the Carter Administration from the man who participated in its surprising number of accomplishments—drawing on his extensive and never-before-seen notes.Stuart Eizenstat was at Jimmy Carter’s side from his political rise in Georgia through four years in the White House, where he served as Chief Domestic Policy Adviser. He was directly involved in all domestic and economic decisions as well as in many foreign policy ones. Famous for the legal pads he took to every meeting, he draws on more than 5,000 pages of notes and 350 interviews of all the major figures of the time, to write the comprehensive history of an underappreciated president—and to give an intimate view on how the presidency works. Eizenstat reveals the grueling negotiations behind Carter’s peace between Israel and Egypt, what led to the return of the Panama Canal, and how Carter made human rights a presidential imperative. He follows Carter’s passing of America’s first comprehensive energy policy, and his deregulation of the oil, gas, transportation, and communications industries. And he details the creation of the modern vice-presidency. Eizenstat also details Carter’s many missteps, including the Iranian Hostage Crisis, because Carter’s desire to do the right thing, not the political thing, often hurt him and alienated Congress. His willingness to tackle intractable problems, however, led to major, long-lasting accomplishments. This major work of history shows first-hand where Carter succeeded, where he failed, and how he set up many successes of later presidents.
The President Electric: Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Performance
by Timothy RaphaelWhen Ronald Reagan first entered politics in 1965, his public profile as a performer in radio, film, television, and advertising and his experience in public relations proved invaluable political assets. By the time he left office in 1989, the media in which he trained had become the primary source for generating and wielding political power. The President Electric: Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Performance reveals how the systematic employment of the techniques and technologies of mass-media performance contributed to Reagan’s rise to power and defined his style of governance. The President Electric stands out among books on Reagan as the first to bring the rich insights of the field of performance studies to an understanding of the Reagan phenomenon, connecting Reagan's training in electronic media to the nineteenth-century notion of the "fiat of electricity"---the emerging sociopolitical power of three entities (mechanical science, corporate capitalism, and mass culture) that electric technology made possible. The book describes how this new regime of cultural and political representation shaped the development of the electronic mass media that transformed American culture and politics and educated Ronald Reagan for his future role as president.
President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier
by CW GoodyearAn &“ambitious, thorough, supremely researched&” (The Washington Post) biography of the extraordinary, tragic life of America&’s twentieth president—James Garfield.In &“the most comprehensive Garfield biography in almost fifty years&” (The Wall Street Journal), C.W. Goodyear charts the life and times of one of the most remarkable Americans ever to win the Presidency. Progressive firebrand and conservative compromiser; Union war hero and founder of the first Department of Education; Supreme Court attorney and abolitionist preacher; mathematician and canalman; crooked election-fixed and clean-government champion; Congressional chieftain and gentleman-farmer; the last president to be born in a log cabin; the second to be assassinated. James Abram Garfield was all these things and more. Over nearly two decades in Congress during a polarized era—Reconstruction and the Gilded Age—Garfield served as a peacemaker in a Republican Party and America defined by divisions. He was elected to overcome them. He was killed while trying to do so. President Garfield is American history at its finest. It is about an impoverished boy working his way from the frontier to the Presidency; a progressive statesman, trying to raise a more righteous, peaceful Republic out of the ashes of civil war; the tragically imperfect course of that reformation, and the man himself; a martyr-President, whose death succeeded in nudging the country back to cleaner, calmer politics.
President George W. Bush
by Beatrice GormleyOur new president, George W. Bush, once said: "I never dreamed about becoming president. When I was growing up, I wanted to be Willie Mays." George W. was born in 1946 and attended Yale University. As a young man, he trained as a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard before beginning a career in business. He then turned to Texas politics and served as governor there from 1994 to 2000. This is the first biography for young people to be published about the forty-third president of the United States, George W. Bush. With up-to-the-minute information and quotes from our new president -- including details of the final days of the campaign and a description of the events from Election Day to acceptance speech -- this book is essential reading for every young student of American history.
"The President Has Been Shot!": The Assassination Of John F. Kennedy
by James L. SwansonA breathtaking and dramatic account of the JFK assassination by the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER!In his new young-adult book on the Kennedy assassination, James Swanson will transport readers back to one of the most shocking, sad, and terrifying events in American history. As he did in his bestselling Scholastic YA book, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER, Swanson will deploy his signature "you are there" style -- a riveting, ticking-clock pace, with an unprecedented eye for dramatic details and impeccable historical accuracy -- to tell the story of the JFK assassination as it has never been told before.The book will be illustrated with archival photos, and will have diagrams, source notes, bibliography, places to visit, and an index.
A President in the Family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Woodson
by Byron W. WoodsonThe author, a 6th generation descendant of Jefferson, details the quest to corroborate family lore, locate missing family members, and reveal the truth about life at Monticello.
President Kennedy
by Richard ReevesPresident Kennedy is the compelling, dramatic history of JFK's thousand days in office. It illuminates the presidential center of power by providing an indepth look at the day-by-day decisions and dilemmas of the thirty-fifth president as he faced everything from the threat of nuclear war abroad to racial unrest at home.
President Lincoln: The Duty Of A Statesman (Playaway Adult Nonfiction Ser.)
by William Lee MillerIn his acclaimed book Lincoln's Virtues, William Lee Miller explored Abraham Lincoln's intellectual and moral development. Now he completes his "ethical biography," showing how the amiable and inexperienced backcountry politician was transformed by constitutional alchemy into an oath-bound head of state. Faced with a radical moral contradiction left by the nation's Founders, Lincoln struggled to find a balance between the universal ideals of Equality and Liberty and the monstrous injustice of human slavery. With wit and penetrating sensitivity, Miller brings together the great themes that have become Lincoln's legacy--preserving the United States of America while ending the odious institution that corrupted the nation's meaning--and illuminates his remarkable presidential combination: indomitable resolve and supreme magnanimity.From the Trade Paperback edition.
President Lincoln Assassinated!!: The Firsthand Story of the Murder, Manhunt, Trial and Mourning
by Harold HolzerFor the 150th anniversary, Harold Holzer (The Civil War in 150 Objects) presents an unprecedented firsthand chronicle of one of the most pivotal moments in American history. On April 14, 1865, Good Friday, the Civil War claimed its ultimate sacrifice. President Lincoln Assassinated!! recaptures the dramatic immediacy of Lincoln's assassination, the hunt for the conspirators and their military trial, and the nation's mourning for the martyred president. The fateful story is told in more than eighty original documents--eyewitness reports, medical records, trial transcripts, newspaper articles, speeches, letters, diary entries, and poems--by more than seventy-five participants and observers, including the assassin John Wilkes Booth and Boston Corbett, the soldier who shot him. Courtroom testimony exposes the intricacies of the plot to kill the president; eulogies by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Phillips, and Benjamin Disraeli and poetry by Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and Julia Ward Howe give eloquent voice to grief; two emotional speeches by Frederick Douglass--one of them never before published--reveal his evolving perspective on Lincoln's legacy. Together these voices combine to reveal the full panorama of one the most shocking and tragic events in our history.
President Me: The America That's in My Head
by Adam CarollaMy fellow Americans,President John F. Kennedy once famously said, "Hey, is that blond intern eighteen yet?" He also said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."We've changed a lot since JFK asked us all to pitch in. We've become a nation of narcissistic, yoga-mat-toting, service-dog-having, absentee dads and gluten-free, hand-wringing, hypochondriac moms of overcaffeinated (yet somehow still lazy) twerking tweens. And our government is an inept bureaucracy incapable of doing anything except getting in our wallets and in our way. We've got to get it together, America.That is why I, Adam Carolla, hereby declare myself Candidate Carolla. The tome you hold in your hands is a statement of my intent to whip our country back into fighting shape, to eliminate the "what are you going to do for me?" mentality that has invaded our country.President Me is my manifesto, my vision for a better place . . . free of Big Government, barefoot fliers, lazy hipsters who'd rather "Occupy" than work, and the other things that are bringing our country down. With my cabinet appointees, my list of worthy and necessary presidential ManDates, and tons of great ideas for fixing our health care, education, energy, and even national parks systems . . . behold an America we can be proud of. The America I see in my head.You're welcome in advance.Your future leader,Adam
President Nixon: Alone in the White House
by Richard ReevesWho was Richard Nixon? The most amazing thing about the man was not what he did as president, but that he became president. In President Nixon, Richard Reeves has used thousands of new interviews and recently discovered or declassified documents and tapes -- including Nixon's tortured memos to himself and unpublished sections of H. R. Haldeman's diaries -- to offer a nuanced and surprising portrait of the brilliant and contradictory man alone in the White House. President Nixon is a startling narrative of a desperately introverted man who dreamed of becoming the architect of his times. Late at night, he sat upstairs in the White House writing notes to himself on his yellow pads, struggling to define himself and his goals: "Compassionate, Bold, New, Courageous...Zest for the job (not lonely but awesome). Goals -- reorganized govt...Each day a chance to do something memorable for someone. Need to be good to do good...Need for joy, serenity, confidence, inspiration." But downstairs he was building a house of deception. He could trust no one because in his isolation he thought other people were like him. He governed by secret orders and false records, memorizing scripts for public appearances and even for one-on-one meetings with his own staff and cabinet. His principal assistants, Haldeman and Henry Kissinger, spied on him as he spied on them, while cabinet members, generals, and admirals spied on all of them -- rifling briefcases and desks, tapping each other's phones in a house where no one knew what was true anymore. Nixon's first aim was to restore order in an America at war with itself over Vietnam. But in fact he prolonged the fighting there, lying systematically about what was happening both in the field and in the peace negotiations. He startled the world by going to communist China and seeking détente with the Soviet Union -- and then secretly persuaded Mao and Brezhnev to lie for him to protect petty White House secrets. Still, he was a man of vision, imagining a new world order, trying to stall the deadly race war he believed was inevitable between the West, including Russia, and Asia, led by China and Japan. At home, he promised welfare reform, revenue sharing, drug programs, and environmental protection, and he presided, reluctantly, over the desegregation of public schools -- all the while declaring that domestic governance was just building outhouses in Peoria. Reeves shows a presidency doomed from the start. It begins with Nixon and Kissinger using the CIA to cover up a 1969 murder by American soldiers in Vietnam that led to the theft and publication of the Pentagon Papers, then to secret counterintelligence units in the White House and finally to the burglaries and cover-up that came to be known as Watergate. Richard Reeves's President Nixon will stand as the authoritative account of Nixon in the White House. It is an astonishing story.