From Library Journal
Bauer assesses Zachary Taylor as ``a man of limited emotional and intellectual capacity'' behind ``a nearly impenetrable mask.'' The mask is lifted only slightly in this new biography. Although Bauer purports to show ``part of Taylor's life that shaped his later actions,'' this account adds little to what we already know from Holman Hamilton's two-volume Zachary Taylor (1941-51), and Hamilton is far better on the White House years. But so little Taylor correspondence has survived that he must remain an enigma to any biographer. Bauer confirms that he was a competent small-unit army commander, a wrong-headed, stubborn president, and a poor politician. For scholars who need a one-volume life. Thomas E. Schott, Office of History, Engineering Installation Div., Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
