Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
87% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
88% positive over last 12 months
Usually ships within 3 to 4 days.
& FREE Shipping
94% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle Cloud Reader.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Betty Ford: Candor and Courage in the White House (Modern First Ladies) Hardcover – December 14, 2004
| John Robert Greene (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Price | New from | Used from |
Enhance your purchase
An independent, free spirit who regularly ranks among the most-admired First Ladies, Betty Ford is considered by many to be the most outspoken since Eleanor Roosevelt: she spoke her mind publicly and frequently, sometimes sending the president's political advisors running for cover. This is the first book to address the successes and failures of her advocacy, the effect of her candor, and the overall impact of her brief tenure as First Lady.
John Robert Greene traces Betty Ford's problems and triumphs from her childhood through her husband's entire political career, including his controversial presidency, which thrust her into an unrelenting media spotlight. He then tells how she confronted her personal demons and became a symbol of courage for women throughout the nation.
Contrasting the sometimes harsh assessments of historians with the respect in which she continues to be held, Greene examines Betty Ford's outspoken opinions on abortion and women's rights and suggests that her views hampered Gerald Ford's ability to forge a coalition within the GOP and may well have been a factor in his presidential defeat. Afterwards, as the author highlights, Betty Ford remained a role model for people suffering from addictions and personal pain, and made seminal contributions in the field of public advocacy for women's health issues and substance abuse. The Betty Ford Center especially stands as a lasting tribute to her foresight and caring.
Greene concludes that, while Gerald Ford wanted to restore an aura of honesty to the presidency, in many ways it was his wife who accomplished this instead. His book, the first to draw upon her papers at the Ford Library, captures her courage and candor and tells why she will always be remembered—for who, not what, she was.
- Print length184 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherUniversity Press of Kansas
- Publication dateDecember 14, 2004
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.56 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-100700613544
- ISBN-13978-0700613540
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more
Frequently bought together

- +
Similar books based on genre
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"With this brief and very readable volume, Greene offers the first serious, scholarly biography of Betty Ford. This study is long overdue."--Michigan Historical Review
"A well-paced, insightful, and sympathetic account of Betty Ford's two great starring roles as the first feminist First Lady and the iconic celebrity who endured the all-too-typical descent into addiction, followed by therapeutic redemption. Greene integrates Betty Ford's story into the larger dramas of the Ford presidency, as well as modern America in general. Brief, punchy, well-organized. . . . All should salute Greene for producing a most welcome biography of a woman who, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes willingly, helped Americans redefine the boundaries of public discourse while expanding their expectations for the difficult role of the presidential spouse."--History: Reviews of New Books
"An affirmative account of the life of a popular and controversial First Lady. . . . Greene provides a wealth of carefully researched detail about the conflicts between members of her staff that also created tension. . . . Greene's account is frank enough and thorough."--Publishers Weekly
"Greene's engaging biography gives Betty Ford her rightful place in history--as an outspoken first lady whose public positions did not always conform to her husband's and as a courageous advocate for solutions to breast cancer and substance abuse."--Susan Hartmann, author of From Margin to Mainstream: American Women and Politics since 1960
"Betty Ford was like no other First Lady before or since, and John Robert Greene shows why."--Herbert Parmet, author of Presidential Power from the New Deal to the New Right
"A fitting tribute to a free spirit and most indomitable First Lady."--James Cannon, author of Time and Chance: Gerald Ford's Appointment with History
From the Back Cover
"Betty Ford was like no other First Lady before or since, and John Robert Greene shows why."--Herbert Parmet, author of Presidential Power from the New Deal to the New Right
"A fitting tribute to a free spirit and most indomitable First Lady."--James Cannon, author of Time and Chance: Gerald Ford's Appointment with History
About the Author
Don't have a Kindle? Compra tu Kindle aquí, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Product details
- Publisher : University Press of Kansas (December 14, 2004)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 184 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0700613544
- ISBN-13 : 978-0700613540
- Item Weight : 14 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.56 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #701,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,159 in US Presidents
- #4,096 in Women in History
- #7,848 in Women's Studies (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

AVAILABLE FOR SIGNINGS, READINGS, AND LECTURES: contact author at: rgreene@cazenovia.edu
John Robert Greene is the Paul J. Schupf Professor of History and Humanities at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, NY, where he has taught for the past forty-two years. He is the director of the History program, and serves as the College Archivist.
Dr. Greene's teaching and writing specialty lies in American Political History, particularly the American presidency. He has written or edited twenty books.
His most recent book is The Presidency of George W. Bush (October 2021 release). Of his book, which utilizes previously unpublished archival sources, Stephen Knott of the U. S. Naval War College has noted: “John Robert Greene has produced an exceptional work of scholarship. This sweeping examination of the presidency of Bush 43 is likely to remain the seminal account of a controversial and remarkably significant administration. Strikingly fair-minded, Greene’s book challenges the conventional narrative of those on the Right and the Left regarding the Bush presidency. This is a gem of a book—a must-read for all those interested in contemporary history and the American presidency.”
Greene's other books include two on the election of Dwight Eisenhower, one on the Nixon presidency, three on the Ford presidency, a biography of Betty Ford, three on the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and one on the presidency of George W. Bush. His America in the Sixties (2010) is rich in both anecdotes, stories, and thoughtful analysis, as it utilizes the author's three decades of teaching and publishing on that fascinating and volatile period. Of his four books on the history of higher education, his Generations of Excellence: A History of Cazenovia College continues to raise funds for scholarships at Cazenovia College. He is presently updating his a history of the presidential election of 1952.
Both his students and his colleagues have honored Dr. Greene. At Cazenovia College, he was awarded the school's first endowed chair; in 1993 the faculty voted him the honor of Distinguished Faculty Member; and in 2020 he was awarded the college's Distinguished Service Award.
Greene has been heard on several radio call-in shows around the country, has been published in many national newspapers and magazines, and has offered commentary such outlets as on C-SPAN, MSNBC, PBS, and National Public Radio.
Born and raised in Syracuse, N.Y., Greene received his undergraduate degrees from St. Bonaventure University, and his Ph.D. in Modern American History from Syracuse University. In other lives, he was a radio disc jockey, played in a very bad small rock band, and taught the visually handicapped.
Products related to this item
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop review from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
John Robert Greene's biography of Betty Ford does justice to a woman who was so clearly ahead of her time, and certainly not afraid to admit it either. Whether people love or hate her, they ultimately admit that Betty Ford has ideas of her own. Greene, a historian, previously authored biographies on George H.W. Bush and (appropriately) Gerald Ford.
After Spiro T. Agnew and Richard Nixon's resignations, Gerald Ford unexpectedly became the nation's president. Although he is relatively liberal by current Republican standards (which was issue of contention in the 1976 Republican primary) Ford was conservative when compared to his own wife.
Even though she was from the World War II era generation---who weren't supposed to support women's liberation, Ford instead championed the Equal Rights Amendment and gave public thanks that abortion was `brought out of the back woods' in interviews which were undoubtedly path-breaking in their own day.
In a time when the new right was preparing for the Reagan and Bush eras, Betty Ford was a true lightning rod. Effectively defusing an idea that only `radicals' or `wide eyed youth' wanted policy AND cultural changes, she helped to successfully infuse women's rights with a public `respectability' that several other public female supporters were not able to achieve in 1974-1976. Being First Lady gave Mrs. Ford the ability to draw middle America to the very social movements which they otherwise might have feared.
For instance, after finding a lump in her own breast, Mrs. Ford encouraged other women to talk about breast cancer---and promoted the early detection which is now commonplace in America. Because then prevailing sentiment had been to `keep quiet' and attempt treating cancer in later and ultimately more difficult stages, Mrs. Ford has saved many women's lives. When compared against the Republican Party's subsequent and current `pro-family' ideology which actually attempts hiding frank discussions of human anatomy, her actions truly were `pro-life'.
For all its celebration, the book does pointedly acknowledge that Ford had a substance abuse problem. Again turning personal experience into public enlightenment/growth, Ford lent her name to the Betty Ford treatment center in California. If the center has subsequently become the stuff of pop culture, it also has humanized first ladies; they experience problems AND also have opinions how to end those problems.
Even if she was never actually a co-president and was generally content as First Lady, Betty Ford had ultimately opened the door for successors Rosalyn Carter and Hillary Rodham Clinton to increase the public role in ways which Eleanor Roosevelt had only dreamt about. This book is recommended for historians and political scientists, particularly those interested in theories about the power and influence of First Ladies on public policy.
