Hubert Humphrey: A Biography [Hardcover]

Carl Solberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1984

Hubert Humphrey was the consummate liberal politician of the second half of the twentieth century, evolving from charismatic mayor of Minneapolis to crusading US senator to compliant vice president under the overpowering Lyndon B Johnson -- to defeated presidential hopeful. Here is the most complete and authoritative biography of Humphrey ever written. Based on over two hundred interviews and access to his papers at the Minnesota Historical Society, it presents a portrait of a vivacious, complex man, the leading orator and most productive legislator of his age. The book opens with an account of what may have been Humphrey's finest hour, the 1948 Democratic National Convention, when the brash, young mayor of Minneapolis challenged Southern conservatives and committed his party to the civil rights laws that reshaped twentieth-century America. Here too is the story of Humphrey's failure to weather the contending passions and ambitions of the sixties, and of the humiliating bargain he made with Lyndon Johnson in accepting the vice-presidency in 1964. The author's dramatic account of this relationship highlights Johnson's ruthlessness and Humphrey's inability to see the catastrophic political consequences of his blind loyalty to the president. In Carl Solberg's vivid retelling, Humphrey's compassion and ambition, successes and ultimate failures, are placed in historical context and provide a vital source for the understanding of our times.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carl Solberg is a former writer and associate editor for Time magazine and visiting scholar in the history department at Columbia University. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 572 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (June 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393018067
• ISBN-13: 978-0393018066
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,131,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Biography of a Misunderstood Liberal Giant, July 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Hubert Humphrey: A Biography (Hardcover)

Hubert Humphrey, who served in the US Senate for 24 years and dominated that body as few men ever have, has long been a greatly underrated figure by political biographers and historians. Far more than the Kennedy brothers or Lyndon Johnson, Humphrey was a crusader for liberal causes even when they were unpopular, and his leadership in the cause of civil rights puts virtually every other major politician to shame. Yet today Humphrey is almost forgotten by most Americans, and other, less worthy men have gained the credit for the social and economic change that should have been his. Carl Solberg, in this solidly-researched, if somewhat pedestrian biography, shows why Humphrey came to be a rather tragic figure in the history of American liberalism. Humphrey was born in 1911 in the tiny town of Doland (population, about 700) on the isolated South Dakota prairie. The dominant figure in his early life was his father, the town pharmacist and "token" Democrat, whom he adored. Humphrey's childhood was generally happy, but it came to an abrupt end when the Great Depression struck. All of Doland's banks closed and many other businesses failed as the local farmers and townsfolk couldn't afford to pay their bills. The Humphrey drugstore also suffered, and the family had to sell their handsome house and move into a much smaller one. Eventually, Humphrey's father gave up on the dying town and moved to the larger town of Huron, where the local townspeople at first gave his family the cold shoulder and the already-established pharmacists tried to run him out of business. The Humphreys had to fight to survive and young Hubert, who had dreamed of getting a college degree and leaving South Dakota behind, was forced to get a pharmacists' license instead and help his father run the drugstore. Although he proved to be a capable druggist and manager of the family drugstore, he disliked the job and after seven years finally told his father that he couldn't do it anymore. He went to college at the University of Minnesota, earned a master's degree in political science, and quickly moved into Democratic politics in the city of Minneapolis. At the age of 34 he was elected Mayor, where he rooted out crooks and helped the labor unions. In 1948 he first achieved the national spotlight with a dramatic speech to the Democratic National Convention in which he forcefully pushed the cause of civil rights for blacks, earning him friends among liberal Democrats but enraging the Southern segregationists, who vowed revenge. Elected to the US Senate in 1948, Humphrey was at first scorned by the angry Southern segregationists who ran the Senate and regarded Humphrey as a wild-eyed fanatic who wanted to give blacks the right to vote (which he did). Humphrey refused to be intimidated and stood his ground, eventually winning friends among liberal Northern Democrats and the respect and affection of even the Southerners. Yet time and again Humphrey, always a poor man in a rich man's political game, found himself passed over for Senate leadership posts and the Presidency by wealthier or less-liberal candidates. In 1960 Humphrey's underfunded presidential campaign was crushed by the Kennedys, who bought huge numbers of votes in the West Virginia primary to finish him off. In 1964 he was picked as Lyndon Johnson's running mate, but his four years as Vice-President were miserable. Johnson was consistently bullying and even backstabbing to Humphrey, despite his loyal service, and Humphrey's support of the Vietnam War caused many of his liberal supporters to turn against him (after he privately advised Johnson to stay out of Vietnam, LBJ threatened to destroy Humphrey politically unless he publicly supported the war effort). In 1968 Humphrey finally won the Democrats' nomination for President, but the bloody riots outside the Convention Hall between Chicago police and antiwar protestors, combined with a bitter split in the party over the Vietnam War, led to his narrow defeat by Republican Richard Nixon. In 1970 Humphrey was returned to the US Senate by Minnesota's voters, but he was defeated in 1972 and 1976 by lesser-known (and lesser-qualified) Democrats for the presidential nomination. In 1976 he was diagnosed with cancer, and after waging a painful and brave battle against the disease, he died in 1978. Solberg's great insight in this biography is that Humphrey failed to become President because he was both ahead of, and then behind, his times. In the late 1940's and 1950's his fiery speeches on behalf of civil rights and other liberal causes led Democrats to complain that he was too "radical" and "extreme" to be elected President - he was too "liberal" for the country's mood. Yet by the late sixties his support of the Vietnam War led younger liberals to claim he was too "conservative" and "behind the times" to be President. Given Humphrey's achievements - Medicare, the Voting Rights Act, and the Peace Corps were just a few of his ideas which other Presidents put into place - many older liberals may regret that they didn't support him for President in 1968, and many younger liberals may wish they currently had a crusader like Humphrey to lead them. Although Solberg's writing style is rather pedestrian, overall he does a fine job of describing the life of a man who should be rated among the most creative political leaders of the last fifty years.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely well written and an in-depth account of HHH's life, August 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Hubert Humphrey: A Biography (Hardcover)

We know that Carl Solberg took this subject upon his own knowledge of this subject as a expert Time-Life staffer and Minnesota insider to undertake this project. It is a well written and well researched. There are not too many like this account. It fills in a dearth of Humphrey biographies

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely well written and an in-depth account of HHH's life, August 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Hubert Humphrey: A Biography (Hardcover)

We know that Carl Solberg took this subject upon his own knowledge of this subject as a expert Time-Life staffer and Minnesota insider to undertake this project. It is a well written and well researched. There are not too many like this account. It fills in a dearth of Humphrey biographies