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53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Saves Harding from the Ash Heap of American Presidents, February 8, 2004
This review is from: Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series) (Hardcover)
John Dean has achieved the considerable feat of rescuing the reputation of a man who is generally considered one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. He does this by drawing the reader's attention to what made Harding one of the most popular American presidents during his lifetime: a speedy and significant economic recovery, a major international arms reduction agreement, and, perhaps most importantly, a reduction in divisiveness from his predecessor's final two years in office. Not long after Warren Harding's death in August, 1923, public and critical opinion toward his presidency began a precipitous decline. Several scandals - some of which had already emerged during his presidency and some of which would only come out after his death - began to symbolize his regime. Harding's presidential papers, which could have helped remove some of the black marks towards his administration, were withheld from public view, allowing fictionalized and grossly unhistorical accounts of his presidency to stand as the only available record. Harding's fundamental decency, his good political instincts, and his high regard for public service were lost in the one-sided reckoning of his presidency. Even in the selection of his cabinet and other personnel, Harding was far better than is now widely assumed. While several scandals arose among his cabinet and staff (none of which implicated the president himself), Harding made several outstanding and notable selections to his cabinet and to the Supreme Court: Andrew Mellon as Treasury Secretary, Herbert Hoover as head of the Department of Commerce, William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are some examples. Harding was not a five-star president, and this biography does not make the case he was. This is a five-star book about the man and his presidency that makes the case they deserve far better recognition than they have received. John Dean shows there was far more to Harding and his presidency than smoke-filled poker rooms, womanizing, and political scandals and corruption that have come to symbolize his administration.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Short book that makes some good points, December 25, 2003
This review is from: Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series) (Hardcover)
John W. Dean's new short biography of Warren G. Harding, the twenty-ninth president of the United States, is a welcome addition to the scant amount of good literature on the president who enjoyed a great reputation while in office, but sank to the bottom of the list when scandals and corruption in his administration were exposed after his death. For us Harding enthusiasts Dean's book makes the explicit point that Harding wasn't really all that bad...that after all, he had some successes in the abbreviated term he served from 1921-1923. To this end, I believe Dean has made a strong case. Warren Harding was a man whose entire life seemed to be clouded in intrigue and mystery. It's always been a wonder to me why historians haven't written more about him. From the gossipy "The Shadow of Blooming Grove" (1968) through Dean's book, one senses a definite uptick in Harding's reputation. Dean recites Harding's accomplishments....the Washington disarmament conference (1921-22), the creation of the Bureau of the Budget and his naming of former president William Howard Taft to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The author gives Harding praise for his efforts to help settle the coal and railroad strikes and his ability to stand up to Congress when he thought he was right. In Dean's book President Harding comes across more forcefully than in other books I've read about this president. Dean suggests that one of Harding's biggest political achievements was his ability not to make enemies. Of course, this was his biggest problem, too. Dean is careful not to elevate Harding too high and the overall success of this book is to keep Harding out of the cellar of the ranking of presidents. Perhaps that space can now be occupied by James Buchanan. John Dean conquers no new real historic ground. The book is very short and more, I think, aimed at readers who don't know too much about Warren Harding. Dean's prose is sometimes a bit wooden and I wish he had included a few more photographs. I particularly enjoyed the section on Harding's selection of the cabinet and the comments about Harding's speaking style and substance by William McAdoo and H.L. Mencken (page 73) are very funny. Was Warren G. Harding fit for the presidency? Even Harding wondered about that, himself. John Dean has essentially said "yes" and I agree with him. The author has presented a well-researched book and one that deserves to be read.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Blowing off the dust ..., September 8, 2005
This review is from: Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series) (Hardcover)
I decided to read this book after seeing Dean plug it on C-SPAN. It sounded fascinating, and it was. As a history student and reader, I had never bothered to read up on Harding and had been subjected to the repeated, glib assessments of the 29th president as a bland mediocrity, a morally compromised Republican get-along, go-along who comfortably fell into the presidency and did little but play poker, drink bootleg liquor, and frolic with his mistress in the White House before dying of a bellyache.
Wrong, concludes Dean. I doubt that anyone will ever make the case for Harding being a great president, but Dean at least makes a case for his being a competent chief executive who racked up some worthwhile accomplishments during his twenty-nine months in office. Eschewing the myths that grew up around the man after his death in August, 1923, Dean evaluates the personal attacks that were made on Harding and finds them wanting in both veracity and objectivity.
Of course, Harding was tainted in life and in death by the shenanigans of two cabinet members and some of their cronies. I do wish Dean had gone deeper into the treatment that the U.S. news media gave to Teapot Dome and the other scandals that scarred Harding's administration, and whether his tarnished reputation can be traced to a few partisan journalists (such as H.L. Mencken, whom Dean does talk about at length). Although Dean portrays Harding (who was for many years a newspaper publisher) as getting along famously with White House reporters and the Republican-dominated news media of his day, there must have been something beyond politics that motivated Mencken and Harding's other detractors to constantly trash him. Eastern elitism? Scorn for Harding's often tortured oratory? (He wasn't a bad writer, just ... different.) Contempt for his rather laid-back leadership style, which emphasized compromise rather than confrontation? There's a subject for a book in itself, but not a book of this volume's limited scope.
Of course, Dean's own tarnished White House years (and their common Ohio background) have likely made him a sympathetic Harding biographer. And this book -- part of a series of short presidential bios -- was never intended as the last word on Harding or his presidency. But for the general public, at least, Dean's account of Harding blows the dust off of history and reminds us that the past needs frequent re-examination and re-evaluation. Harding may not be among America's great or near-great presidents, but Dean makes a strong case for considering him with respect and, perhaps, even some admiration. Of course, there are other Harding biographies of the post-1964 era (the crucial year in which Harding's presidential papers finally were made public) that are less admiring than Dean, and I'd like to read them as well. But Dean is a reasonable place to start.
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