Synopses & Reviews
In "The Prince of Tennessee, " David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima explore in rich detail the forces that have shaped Al Gore's life, and the ways that his past offers clues to what kind of president he would be. The Gore who comes to life in these pages is an intelligent and competent man, struggling with self-doubt and insecurity that explain his bureaucratic obsession with fact and his tendency to exaggerate his accomplishments.
Gore's path to power, at first glance, seems straight and narrow. While Bill Clinton's rise is a story of obstacles overcome, Gore's ascendance seems the opposite: the son of political aristocracy reared by loving and demanding parents who groomed him as a princeling to reach the top. But his life was shaped by as much duality as Clinton's. As a child Gore was shuffled back and forth from political Washington to rural Tennessee, his ancestral homeland. The contrast reflects a larger tension between what others expected of Gore and what he wanted to do. Here was the quintessential good son whom his classmates teased as the wooden Apollo. He would occasionally try to rebel but inevitably be yanked back by the burden of expectations and his own insecurity.
His first ambition was to be a novelist, but his friends at Harvard saw him as a royal figure for whom a political career was unavoidable. He opposed the war in Vietnam, yet enlisted in the army anyway, out of an obligation to shield his father, the antiwar senator. When he eventually turned to politics Gore brought with him competing impulses: the cautious political moderate with an occasional tendency toward uncommon boldness, the awkward public figure who in private can be a raucous storyteller, the loyal son and vice president who wants to be considered on his own terms, the reluctant politician who burns with a desire to fulfill his parents' dream and become president.
Synopsis
After losing the closest American election in years, Al Gore remains a fascinating political figure, a man both revered and reviled. Drawing on documents, letters, and interviews with more than three hundred people, including six lengthy conversations with the vice president, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima look closely at the forces that have shaped Gore's life and career to explore the man behind the contradictory public persona. Beginning with Gore's earliest years -- when this son of a senator was torn between elite Washington and rural Tennessee -- one is struck by the image of a young American prince burdened by expectations of his likely political fate. With a new afterword written after the election, The Prince of Tennessee depicts Gore as an intelligent and competent man whose struggles with self-doubt and insecurity made him one of our least understood presidential candidates.
Synopsis
In The Prince of Tennessee, David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima explore in rich detail the forces that have shaped Al Gore's life, and the ways that his past offers clues to what kind of president he would be. The Gore who comes to life in these
Table of Contents
Contents ONE The Long Road
TWO Prince of the Fairfax
THREE Lost and Found at Harvard
FOUR The Tumultuous Summer
FIVE The War at Home
SIX The Obligation
SEVEN Private Gore
EIGHT The "Sordid Crusade"
NINE A Summer's Tale
TEN The Sting
ELEVEN Other Lives
TWELVE The Son Shall Rise
THIRTEEN The Information Man
FOURTEEN Bo Loses Nancy
FIFTEEN Hubris Alert
SIXTEEN Reporting Gore
SEVENTEEN Blown to Smithereens
EIGHTEEN The New World War
NINETEEN Tipper's Everyday Life
TWENTY Two Guys
TWENTY-ONE Being There
EPILOGUE: The Struggle Within
Note on Sources
Acknowledgments
Index