Pure Goldwater - Hardcover

Dean, John W.; Goldwater Jr., Barry M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1403977410 ISBN 13: 9781403977410

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2008

Synopsis

Barry Goldwater is a defining figure in American public life, a firebrand politician associated with an optimistic brand of conservatism. In an era in which American conservatism has lost his way, his legacy is more important than ever. For over 50 years, in those moments when he was away from the political fray, Senator Goldwater kept a private journal, recording his reflections on a rich political and personal life. Here bestselling author John Dean combines analysis with Goldwater's own words.
With unprecedented access to his correspondence, interviews, and behind-the-scenes conversations, Dean sheds new light on this political figure. From the late Senator's honest thoughts on Richard Nixon to his growing discomfort with the rise of the extreme right, Pure Goldwater offers a revelatory look at an American icon--and also reminds us of a more hopeful alternative to the dispiriting political landscape of today.

About this title

About the Author

John W. Dean is a former Nixon White House counsel and the New York Times-bestselling author of Worse than Watergate and Conservatives without Conscience. Barry M. Goldwater, Jr. is a former Congressman from California, and is the son of Senator Barry Goldwater.

Reviews

Starred Review. Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), whose 1960 best-seller Conscience of a Conservative helped define the modern conservative movement, was by 1996 describing himself and Bob Dole as "the new liberals of the Republican Party." Author Dean (Broken Government, Conservatives Without Conscience) and Goldwater Jr., the Senator's son and an eighth-term California congressman, explore the complicated figure in this "scrap book" of journal excerpts, correspondence, articles and other primary testimony. A Republican maverick who valued principle over political expediency, Goldwater can be predictable-maintaining loyalty toward Nixon even as the President edged him out of inner White House circles (as late as May 1973, Goldwater called for Jack Anderson's Pulitzer to be re-dubbed "the Benedict Arnold Award")-but he was neither an ideologue nor a mud-slinger: for instance, his hard-hitting fight against President Johnson stopped short of scandalizing LBJ's chief of staff, arrested for "disorderly" conduct in a men's toilet, and in 1994 he went against the powerful new GOP congress by saying publicly of Whitewater, "I haven't heard anything yet that says this is all that big of a deal." Covering personal life, career and retirement, including his 1964 bid for president, this is an invaluable chronicle of the times, told by an American who changed politics by being, simply, "an honest man who tried his damnedest."
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Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1403977410
• ISBN 13: 9781403977410
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416