Synopses & Reviews
Coinciding with his departure from the United States Senate after twenty-four years of distinguished service, this major work is the first comprehensive account of the life and ideas of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a great political figure and a brilliant and complex man. Godfrey Hodgson, a highly regarded expert on American politics and history, has known Senator Moynihan for four decades and had full access to him and to his political papers while preparing this book. In addition, he interviewed dozens of Moyhnihan's friends, aides, and antagonists.
Both admiring and critical, this balanced portrait follows Moynihan's rise from an unpromising childhood in a broken middle-class family (not, as many believe, a tenement boyhood in New York's Hell's Kitchen). It explains how a self-described "birthright Democrat" could decide to work for Richard Nixon, and how a man elected to the Senate as the darling of the neoconservatives could come to oppose Ronald Reagan and fight for the goals of mainstream Democrats. It deals at length with Moynihan's sometimes embattled tenure as our ambassador to India and to the United Nations. Above all, it is the history of a mind, portraying Moynihan as a prophet who again and again saw through the conventional wisdom of liberals and conservatives alike, and who expressed his insights with clarity, vigor, and not a little wit. From "benign neglect" to "defining deviancy down," his formulation of some of the central problems of American society are sure to remain part of our national discourse for years to come.
Among the many prominent people who appear in these pages, some in fascinating behind-the-scenes encounters, are Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon; Henry Kissinger; Indira Gandhi; and Elizabeth Moynihan, the senator's wife and a remarkable figure in her own right. This splendid biography powerfully illuminates the life and ideas of a courageous, controversial, truly impressive American, whose entire career embodies a sustained faith in the possibility of a Great Society.
Review
[a]lucid, engaging study of the life and career of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the senate's philospher-king.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [407]-434) and index.
About the Author
Godfrey Hodgson has written several books on American politics and history, including AMERICA IN OUR TIME and, most recently, THE WORLD TURNED RIGHT SIDE UP: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN CONSERVATISM. He is currently the director of the Reuters Foundation Programme at Oxford University. The author resides in England.
Table of Contents
Contents Preface and Acknowledgments : ix
Book I 1. The Prophet An Introduction : 3 2. Growing Pains New York and London : 25 3. Chance Encounters, Random Walks Harriman, Marriage and J. Edgar Hoover : 49 4. On the New Frontier 1961-1965 : 73 5. The Dark Hour The Election and the Report, 1965-1966 : 99 6. The Era of Bad Manners From Harvard to Nixon : 121
Book II 7. Tory Men, Whig Measures Working for Nixon in the White House : 149 8. Watergate from Afar Rethinking Nixon, America and the World : 182 9. Proconsul Ambassador to Delhi : 195 10. The Other End of 42nd Street Ambassador at the United Nations and the Zionism Resolution : 223 11. To the Senate The 1976 Campaign : 259
Book III 12. A Democrat Again First Term, 1977-1982 : 277 13. Falling Out with Reagan Second Term, 1983-1989 : 302 14. Money and Power Third Term, 1989-1994 : 327 15. The Legislator as Magnifico Fourth Term, 1995-2000 : 364
Notes : 409 Index : 437