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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Succinct, Entertaining, Insightful, August 22, 2003
This review is from: Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History (Paperback)
This is more than a study of the evolution of American society than a history per se of Presidential marriages. The one theme - - apart from the relationship between personal and political lives - is how First Ladies viewed and interpreted that most ambiguous of positions. For this is a story told from the point of view of the woman - not the man - and for that reason it is all the more intriguing. Each President has natural strengths but the adage "Behind every successful man is a woman" was never truer. The marriages can be divided into three categories - normal, those that recovered and those that never reconciled. In the first category are Truman, Ford, Bush I, Bush II, Reagan and Carter. Lady Bird and Jackie chose to accept infidelity as part and parcel of the marriage while Roosevelt, Nixon and Clinton committed acts that forever scarred. Indeed, sexual infidelity seems a secondary theme. Eleanor never trusted FDR after her discovery, Jackie sought refuge in other arenas, Lady Bird found a life in other activities and Hillary - the most humiliated of all - found solace in a career apart from her husband. As far as ideological sway, I found very little to challenge. True, the author seemed to praise Democratic administrations more than Republican ones but her personal stories were strictly non-partisan. She would sum up a chapter such as ,"The Clinton Administration is the story of a marriage" or "For Nancy, it was always only Ronnie." She managed to find the essence of the relationship and her conclusions were not only surprising but surprisingly on target.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating and informational, but quite biased by author, November 22, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History (Paperback)
The book covers several presidential marriages of the 20th century. I knew very little about the presidents of the early 1900's, so it was fascinating reading about the marriages and issues of the times. It was clearly written by a writer who is not a historian. As evidenced by her footnotes, her research was based on other peoples books, newspapers and magazines such as Newsweek. She also interviewed a number of presidential spouses herself. The result is an intriguing blend of little-known facts and interesting quotes. However, the author clearly formed personal opinions about each and every spouse in the book. Unfortunately her bias became stronger as the book progressed. By the time I reached the most recent presidential marriages, the book had turned into personal commentary of each presidency rather than the informational book it had been at the start.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Behind Closed White House Doors, June 10, 2008
This review is from: Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History (Paperback)
The reader will be engrossed from the first page to the last. Reads like a novel; but is factual. A real page-turner. I offer slight criticism with the overall scheme of the book: not including the Gilded Age presidents alluded to in the introduction. I agree that Mamie Eisenhower and Bess Truman did not play significant roles along with their husbands; but Florence Harding, Grace Coolidge, and Nellie Taft did influence their husbands....and significantly so. I hope that when a revision is done, the author will include chapters on these three presidential couples. The reader will be "hooked" after reading the first chapter on Woodrow Wilson and his second wife. Its refreshing to find that Mrs. Marton, the author, did not gloss over the cover-up that Edith Wilson perpetuated with Dr. Cary Grayson, Wilson's White House physician. Every stone is turned over, including the little-known fact that Grayson attended to Edith during her first marriage to Mr. Galt when she had a miscarriage; this is an important connection often over-looked by historians who have preferred to over-look the Wilsons' peccadilloes, including his affairs with the Princeton professor's wife and Mary Peck. Readers will be intrigued to learn about Woodrow's sharing of secret intelligence codes and allowing his wife to use them and the State Department documents which arrived encoded. The author does a good job explaining why it was Edith who turned Woodrow against his closest advisor, Colonel House, his personal secretary, Mr. Tumulty, and Secretary of State Lansing, and even Vice President Marshall...all of whom he desperately needed while desperately ill. Any serious student of presidential history needs this volume in their library. The reader will learn how a woman with only two years of formal education ended up secretly running the country in one of the most devastating cover-ups in our nation's history. Unlike the personal memoirs of Edith Wilson and Dr. Grayson, this is not a self-serving account. Not wishing to spoil the rest of the book by revealing too much, the reader will be engrossed with chapters on the other presidential couples to the present day. This is one book not to be missed.
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