From Publishers Weekly
Henry L. Stimson was secretary of war under Taft, governor-general of the Philippines under Coolidge, secretary of state under Hoover and secretary of war again under FDR. The atom bombs were built and dropped under Stimson's supervision and authority. Born two years after Lincoln's assassination, he was brought up in the code of the Victorian gentleman, unashamedly elitist and dead certain that American world leadership was essential. He was also the living link between the foreign policies of 19th-century U.S. imperialism and the Cold War era. In his last act in public life, in 1947, he proposed the internationalization of nuclear technology in the hope that the Soviet Union could be persuaded not to start an arms race. The public figure as well as the private man are richly delineated in this elegant, learned biography, which offers deep insight into the process by which the U.S. emerged from the periphery of world events to the center of global power. Hodgson is the author of All Things to All Men. Photos .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Stimson has few equals in American history. As Secretary of War on two occasions (1911-13, 1940-45) and Secretary of State (1929-33), Stimson's record is matched only by Timothy Pickering. He was at the seat of events from the "rise to world power" to the enshrinement of the Republic triumphant in 1945. He was intimate, insofar as such a reserved individual could be, with everyone who was anyone, from Theodore Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman. Yet despite his achievements and his voluminous papers, this work is only the second attempt at a personal assessment since Elting E. Morison's "official" biography ( Turmoil and Tradition, LJ 9/15/60). But if this new biography fills in some essential gaps and places Stimson within his historical context, it is also prolix, disapprobationary, and smacks more of journalistic muckraking than historical scholarship.
- J.K. Sweeney, South Da kota State Univ., Brookings
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- J.K. Sweeney, South Da kota State Univ., Brookings
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
