Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Mark Salter (Author)
Key Phrases: fastest woman, Suu Kyi, Mother Teresa, John Wooden (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. As in last year's Why Courage Matters, McCain's latest volume uses biography as an illustration of virtue, but this time the senator broadens his palette significantly, telling 34 stories of heroes whose lives embody qualities ranging from honesty and loyalty to curiosity and enthusiasm. At the root of them all, he says, is a willingness to stay true to one's conscience against all challenges. Thus martyrs appear prominently, from Thomas More and Joan of Arc to Edith Cavell and Father Maximilian Kolbe, as do military heroes, including Pat Tillman, the pro football player whose love of country led him to enlist in the army shortly after 9/11. But the pantheon is inclusive enough to hold Aung San Suu Kyi and Gandhi alongside Churchill and Eisenhower. Although he is reaching out to a younger readership, McCain's plain but sincere language does not condescend to his audience. He makes occasional oblique references to his experiences as a prisoner of war—describing, for example, how they reinforce his understanding of Victor Frankl's concept of dignity—but the only chapter centered on his ordeal highlights a furtive moment of kindness from a Vietnamese soldier. Amid much speculation concerning his plans for 2008, McCain has made a declaration of values that liberals can embrace as readily as conservatives.
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From The Washington Post

It is hard to imagine any other politician writing this book: a series of morality tales pitched at America's youth, built around an eclectic collection of heroes who embody a not entirely predictable set of virtues. But John McCain is not just any politician.

In fact, you can make the case that the greatest success of the Republican senator from Arizona has not been as a politician but as a creator of his own public personality -- as an existential hero and the author of inspirational books. Having previously penned Faith of My Fathers, Worth the Fighting For and Why Courage Matters, he has now created this surprisingly interesting collection with his longtime aide Mark Salter (who is generously acknowledged by McCain as his effective co-author and literary muse). This book is intended to inspire kids, but it will be of great interest to adults, including those trying to figure out how McCain might fare in the 2008 presidential election.

Those who have listened to and read McCain over the years -- yes, I have long been part of that special-interest group that is correctly identified as his principal political base: journalists -- eventually catch on to his moral style. It begins with self-deprecation. (In the introduction, McCain cites his mother's view that "fools' names and fools' faces are often seen in public places.") It then moves to a realistic and not particularly optimistic view of human nature. But it finally arrives at a heroic sense of human possibility. Everything depends on the capacity of human beings to will themselves to transcend their egos.

It's quite a trick for a politician who spends so much time drawing attention to himself to make this case, but McCain keeps pulling it off. He does so in part because his biography as a Vietnam War prisoner-of-war serves as his best character witness. Mostly, though, he makes it work by sharing his own anxieties. No politician has been more successful at selling himself by underselling himself.

"The most important thing I have learned, from my parents, from teachers, from my faith, from many good people I have been blessed to know, and from the lives of people whose stories we have included in this book," he writes, "is to want what they had, integrity, and to feel the sting of my conscience when I have risked it for some selfish reason."

The skeptic in me cries out at this sentence. McCain holds himself to the very highest standard, which ought to make him highly vulnerable to every charge of hypocrisy and phony high-mindedness you can think of. But notice that final clause. McCain knows perfectly well that he is far from perfect. He confesses that he, like everyone else, can be selfish. And then -- the clincher -- he lets you know that he struggles with such flaws because he has a conscience, one appliance many citizens figure that the run-of-the-mill politician never bothered to acquire. As a way of winning friends and influencing people, this is sheer genius.

The question is whether McCain is playing a game with us or whether the whole rap is real. What tilts me McCain's way -- though not without reasonable doubts -- is that he seems to have a well-developed view of human nature. You might see him as a classic believer in original sin who also believes in transcendence and deliverance. That's why the McCain of this book made me think about my theological hero, Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote as powerfully as anyone in the 20th century about sin and salvation.

In summarizing for his readers the lessons they might take from these tales "for the important choices in your own life," McCain offers this view of the human condition: "We are born with one nature. We want what we want, and we want it now. But as we grow, we develop our second nature, our character. These stories are about that second nature." Call me corny, but I wouldn't mind if my kids learned to see life this way.

McCain's book is built around the lives of 34 people whose stories exemplify 34 virtues. Many of the virtues are obvious: honesty, courage, loyalty, responsibility, faith, tolerance, generosity and humility. Some are less obvious choices for a book of this sort: humor, curiosity, resilience, enthusiasm and authenticity.

That McCain really wants to run for president again is clear from his careful selection of heroes. He won't get into any trouble for the politicians he picks: Winston Churchill (for diligence), George Washington (for self-control), Abraham Lincoln (for resilience), Nelson Mandela (for forgiveness), Dwight D. Eisenhower (for humility) and Theodore Roosevelt (for enthusiasm).

He also won't be trashed for leaving out women or people of color. Their ranks include Mahatma Gandhi (for respect); Joan of Arc (for authenticity); Sojourner Truth (for idealism); Queen Elizabeth I (for confidence); Mother Antonia, the Beverly Hills debutante who became a nun working in a tough Mexican prison (for mercy); Oseola McCarty, who gave the $150,000 that she saved from a lifetime of doing others' laundry to the University of Southern Mississippi (for generosity); Martin Luther King Jr. (for fairness); the great Native American leader Tecumseh (for gratitude); the Olympic sprinter Wilma Rudolph (for excellence), and Mother Teresa (for selflessness and contentment). This is a book that works for boys and girls of many backgrounds. And as a political matter, it works across ideological, racial and ethnic divides -- though a political consultant might have told McCain to include more Latinos.

And for a guy who got into a lot of fights with the religious right during his 2000 presidential campaign, there is ample praise of religious figures -- John Winthrop, of "a city upon a hill" fame, makes an appearance on behalf of "hopefulness" -- and repeated references to McCain's own beliefs. His chapter on faith tells the story of a prison guard at the Vietnamese POW camp where McCain was held, who was a secret Christian. One Christmas morning, the guard, whose name McCain never even knew, came close to him and "very casually . . . used his foot to draw a cross in the dirt . . . . I forgot about the war, and the terrible things that war does to you. I was just one Christian venerating the cross with a fellow Christian on a Christmas morning."

But those of McCain's supporters who are altogether secular will not be disappointed. He includes Charles Darwin -- a gutsy pick these days -- as a hero for representing curiosity and defends evolutionary theory against its critics. "The only undeniable challenge the theory of evolution poses to Christian beliefs is its obvious contradiction of the idea that God created the world as it is in less than a week," McCain writes. "But our faith is certainly not so weak that it can be shaken to learn that a biblical metaphor is not literal history. Nature doesn't threaten our faith." You'd like to hope this view would help him more than it hurts him in the 2008 GOP primaries.

McCain's volume might be seen as William J. Bennett's The Book of Virtues with attitude -- the maverick as moralist. His unlikely heroes also serve to make some of his most interesting points. He praises Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman-philosopher who went after "true believers." (Hoffer is here on behalf of "industry.") McCain admirably includes Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian general who headed the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda -- and tried and failed to get the rest of the world to pay attention to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis. Dallaire stands here for "righteousness." It's good that McCain uses his chapter on "courtesy" to praise Aung San Suu Kyi, the extraordinary Burmese human rights hero, and to go after Burma's dictators.

Still, you get a sense at the end of these stories that, for all his talk about love and for all his belief in the human capacity for transcendence, McCain does not have a rosy view of life. Over and over, he refers to the fears, anxieties and darker impulses in his heroes. He notes that Lincoln was "a melancholy man" who suffered from "chronic depression." In Churchill's case, McCain points to "the recurring bouts of serious depression he suffered all of his life, and which he could only chase away with ceaseless activity." In writing about Edith Cavell, the World War I nurse heroine executed by the Germans for harboring Allied troops and getting them to safety, McCain speaks about her father's lack of "warmth and humor" and the reputation she developed for "aloofness and severity."

McCain's openly expressed understanding of life's harsher side -- he repeatedly praises Lincoln for "ruthlessly prosecuting" the Civil War -- makes him an atypical politician. We Americans (and I'm no exception) tend to prefer sunny optimists. But this uncompromising realism may also be the primary source of McCain's appeal.

His chapter on dignity highlights the life of Viktor Frankl, the Austrian Jewish Holocaust survivor who played an important part in McCain's earlier book on his survival in the POW camps. After World War II, Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning, which seems to provide the underpinning of much of what McCain believes. Frankl insisted that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

That is the central theme of this book. And if it turns out to be the theme of McCain's political career -- if his conscience really does have the capacity to be stung -- he will be remembered in a volume like this some day, whether he becomes president or not.

Reviewed by E.J. Dionne Jr.
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (October 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064120
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064120
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #111,825 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Singularly Important Listing of Remarkable People, November 13, 2005

By	Kent Ponder (Albuquerque., NM USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Other reviewers have not revealed McCain's list of admirable character traits, and the individuals he believes best personify them, so let's do that:
Grouped under "HONOR": Honesty (Thomas More), Respect (Ghandi), Authenticity (Joan of Arc), Loyalty (Sir Ernest Shackleton), Dignity (Victor Frankl).
Grouped under "PURPOSE": Idealism (Sojourner Truth), Righteousness (Romeo Dallaire), Citizenship (Pat Tillman), Diligence (Winston Churchill), Responsibility (Lord Nelson & lieutenants), Cooperation (John Wooden).
Under STRENGTH: Courage (Edity Cavell), Self-Control (George Washington), Confidence (Elizabeth I), Resilience (Abe Lincoln), Industry (Eric Hoffer), Hopefulness (John Winthrop).
Under UNDERSTANDING: Faith (Christian guard at Hua Lo Prison), Compassion (Maximillian Kolbe), Mercy (Mother Antonia), Tolerance (The Four Chaplains), Forgiveness (Nelson Mandela), Generosity (Oseola McCarty).
Under JUDGMENT: Fairness (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), Humility (Eisenhower), Gratitude (Tecumseh), Humor (Mark Twain), Courtesy (Aung San Suu Kyi).
Under CREATIVITY: Aspiration (Ferdinand Magellan), Discernment (Leonardo da Vinci), Curiosity (Charles Darwin), Enthusiasm (Theodore Roosevelt), Excellence (Wilma Rudolph).
Under LOVE: Selflessness and Contentment (Mother Teresa)

Little reflection is required to notice the arbitrariness of some of the above pairings of characteristics and individuals. Several other classifications and pairings would have been possible and, obviously, many of the above people qualify under more than one heading. But any listing and pairing could be criticized, so it's more practical to understand that McCain and Salter's list, while arbitrary in some respects, does perform the valuable service of setting out traits and proposed representatives in a listing probably as good as any other.

What is most important about this book is its descriptions of so many people of high character. This presentation goes way beyond chicken soup stories. It's Lobster Bisque for the Noble Soul.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Senator McCain Identifies 34 Role Models in a Worthy History Book, November 17, 2005

By	Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In a manner similar to then-Senator John F. Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" in 1955, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has co-written, with his regular writing partner Mark Salter, a straightforward book about 34 historical figures, both famous and forgotten, all of whom followed their conscience against seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve their sense of truth and decency. Depending on your political affiliation, the publication seems either ironic given the declining level of trust for the current administration and its leader, or timely given McCain's own Presidential aspirations. Perhaps to escape such scrutiny, McCain and Salter have targeted their book to young adults who are otherwise ignored by such politicians except in polemics such as promising increased subsidies for higher education. This decision is admittedly crafty, but fortunately, the co-authors handle their history lesson in a non-condescending way that makes it constructive reading for readers of any age.

The overriding message they want to convey is that there is nothing circumstantial when it comes to people who achieve greatness, that in fact, they achieve greatness as a result of their own character. McCain's message of being responsible for one's own happiness resonates, and he modestly assesses himself as a work-in-progress in this regard. The book is rather arbitrarily organized into seven categories - honor, purpose, strength, understanding, judgment, creativity and love - under which he identifies individuals who represent key aspects of those criteria for greatness. The expected figures are included, legendary martyrs such as Joan of Arc (under "Honor" epitomizing authenticity), Thomas More (representing honesty) and Nelson Mandela (showing forgiveness in the "Understanding" section). Four US Presidents are included - Washington, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower - though interestingly and probably intentionally, no Democrats are on their short list.

The real value of the book, however, is reacquainting, and in some cases, introducing readers to figures with far less renown for deeds of comparable courage, such as Aung San Suu Kyi for her non-violent resistance to the repressive military regime in Myanmar; Mother Antonia, who sacrificed a privileged lifestyle to work as a Catholic sister with prisoners in some of Mexico's worst prisons; and Oseola McCarty, a washerwoman who gave away her life savings to help students get into the University of Southern Mississippi. I even appreciate the inclusion of a more controversial selection such as Charles Darwin for his curiosity even though his theories about evolution are at odds with the religious right. McCain gets more personal by including under a section on faith, the Christian guard at Hua Lo Prison where he was otherwise tortured as a POW during the Vietnam War. It's a revelation that makes the list feel more personal even though no one would argue with most of the choices here. Whatever the political motivation, McCain and Salter have done us a favor by celebrating the human spirit through the courage of these 34 individuals.

46 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Virtue of Virtues, November 11, 2005

By	Robert W. Kellemen "Doc. K." (Crown Point, IN United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Character Is Destiny," by Senator John McCain, reminds me somewhat of the series of books by virtue's czar, William Bennett. Bennett's forte was compiling vignettes from classical literature to illustrate various admirable character traits. McCain follows suit by highlighting character as illustrated by famous and not-so-famous individuals from ancient history and modern times.

His choice of heroes and heroines is eclectic enough to please folks on the right and the left. As the subtitle suggests, the book can be a shared experienced between young and old, parents and children. It is worth the reading for its celebration of the human spirit, in particular the spirit of hope that overcomes despair, love that conquers hate, and faith that defeats doubt.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of "Soul Physicians," "Spiritual Friends," and "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction."