Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, delivers a brilliant and provocative reexamination of America’s 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, and the decade of unparalleled growth that the nation enjoyed under his leadership. In this riveting biography, Shlaes traces Coolidge’s improbable rise from a tiny town in New England to a youth so unpopular he was shut out of college fraternities at Amherst … fraternities at Amherst College up through Massachusetts politics. After a divisive period of government excess and corruption, Coolidge restored national trust in Washington and achieved what few other peacetime presidents have: He left office with a federal budget smaller than the one he inherited. A man of calm discipline, he lived by example, renting half of a two-family house for his entire political career rather than compromise his political work by taking on debt. Renowned as a throwback, Coolidge was in fact strikingly modern — an advocate of women’s suffrage and a radio pioneer. At once a revision of man and economics, Coolidge gestures to the country we once were and reminds us of qualities we had forgotten and can use today.
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Learned lessons from a hundred years ago that reflect upon lessons taking place now. Thus informative but way too detailed that led to boring sections
I enjoyed this biography a lot more than I thought I would. Writing-wise, it was a decent read, I would even go so far as to say it was well-written. Context-wise, well, that’s different. There were interesting moments throughout the entirety of the book, but it was pretty dry and even dragged during the first half (early life-first term …
Very good book about a forgotten President. Well researched and informative.
This is a superb history of one of our greatest Presidents, a man whose administration was not one of great feats, but of great character, of grasping the concepts of small government, individual responsibility and federalism. Calvin Coolidge was, in many ways, a throw-back to the era of the founding fathers. Excellent book, although the chapters …
I have long been an admirer of President Calvin Coolidge. This is a wonderful biography of him, his wife and his times. It makes me want to read other books by the author
It was factual and I had a particular interest in Coolidge. It was much better than another book about him that I attempted to read.
very good history of his life
Look, the sad truth is that Coolidge barely missed by months being held responsible for the disaster that was The Great Depression that was caused by his disastrous economic policies – which Hoover merely maintained. And what were those policies? 1. Low taxes on the rich – incetivizing the elites to pocket profits instead of reinvesting in …