Customer Reviews

Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mark Updegrove has written an entertaining and deftly researched story of the lives and accomplishments of our modern American presidents after their terms in the Oval Office. The author offers a fair-handed, nonpartisan history as he interweaves tales of both personal and political dimensions. SECOND ACTS shows how these men continued to forge their legacies after leaving the most powerful office in the land. It's a rare book that can truly be described as "important," but with the contributions that Updegrove makes to the field of presidential history, I feel that SECOND ACTS merits such a label.

Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House chronicles the activities of former presidents who, far from retiring from office, are making important contributions. Now ex-presidents perform valuable services such as international emissaries, taking their own agendas overseas. Interviews with former presidents, first ladies, family member and staff members not only present these activities, but analyze how ex-presidents are continuing to shape the politics and events of the Oval Office. Essential for any collection strong in American history or politics.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book tells of the post-presidential years of all the Presidents beginning with Truman. It is jam packed with interesting information, and while it may break no new ground it does a superlative job of summing the times and men involved. It is a very easy read, and I found it fun to read.

This book makes for light reading but it does offer a unique insight into what president's have done after leaving office and how the role has evolved and differed over the years. It also offers interesting insights into how the various presidents have interacted with one another and with the public at large including how they seem to regain or obtain a measure of respect that eluded them in office. One flaw that kept this from being a five star review was the number of editorial mistakes including a number of incorrect dates listed through out the book that ultimately made a perfect book slightly imperfect. But don't let that stop you from reading this!

Second Acts tells the very human stories of the transitions Presidents Truman through Clinton made from president to private citizen--albeit very public ones. The book is highly readable, revealing the character of the men it covers in ways more illuminating than standard historical tomes. The Library Journal proclaimed it "highly recommended." So do I.

I really enjoyed this book. It flowed from president to president and provided a lot of detail on aspects of president's lives I had never thought about. Because I'm not a historian, I don't have the issue that some of the other reviewers had concerning whether new ground was covered, so most of the information was new to me and I was happy to read it in a single readable book rather than spread over multiple articles and books.

An intriguing title for an uninspired book. Though the writing style is crisp, the content merely consists of a recitation of commonly-known facts and anecdotes. There is too much regurgitation of the high- and low-lights of the presidential years and too little new ground covered in the "retirement" years. The most serious flaw of the book, however, is the sloppy research; basic and unpardonable factual errors repeatedly leap off the pages, casting doubt about the author's knowledge and reliability. A sampling of the more blatant examples include:
* Updegrove cites November 20, 1963 as the date of JFK's assassination!
* He refers to vice presdient Alben Barkley as "Alvin".
* At one point he identifies Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn as "Senate Majority Leader".
* Six Crises, the book Richard Nixon wrote following his 1960s defeats, is erroneously included in the list of books he penned from "1979 to 1992".
* According to Updegrove, Gerald Ford uttered his famous "I am a Ford, not a Lincoln" after taking the oath of office as vice president when, in fact, it happened after succeeding Nixon as president.
* President Andrew Johnson, the first president to be impeached, was successful in "dodging impeachment", in the author's distorted version of the episode.
* Updegrove claims that Winthrop Rockefeller, Nelson's brother, was governeor of West Virginia when he actually was governor of Arkansas.
* He refers to the prestigious Wellesley College, Hillary Clinton's alma mater, as "Wellesley University".
These are unforgivable factual errors. As teacher I cringe at the thought that unsuspecting readers will be misinformed when relying on this book for authoritative information.
A suggestion for the author and editor at the Lyons Press: do a fact check before releasing books on biography and history.

This book isn't as good as one would think. A lot of the scholarship is available in other places (Wikipedia) or other, more respected presidential biographies. The one leader the author does great justice to is Jimmy Carter (for obvious reasons given his lengthy "second act"). The rest of the book is pretty forgettable.

An interesting read about the post-presidential lives of our heads of state, the book adopts an anecdotal and humanist view on eight of the men who were both loved and hated by constituents during their tenure in the White House. This is a must read for the political junkie, especially in the turbulent partisan atmosphere of Washington today, simply because the legacy of the president you hated in office might change with Updegrove's short biographies.
A quick read, the chapter-long stories make it easy to transition from president to president and throughout history.

This book was an interesting read that broke virtually no new ground. Most of the knowledge about post-Presidential activities has been in the public domain for years. You'd think Clinton was the most important ex-President ever given the space spent on him.

The fatal flaw in the book was the error that had John Kennedy assassinated on November 20, 1963. C'mon, my 11 year old knows what happened on November 22nd and so should an author on Presidential history. This alone suggests someone was hugely asleep at the wheel and causes one to ask what other fatal flaws got in the book.