Presidential Diversions or J Edgar Hoover

Presidential Diversions: Presidents at Play from George Washington to George W. Bush

Author: Paul F Boller

Paul F. Boller, Jr.'s widely admired and bestselling anecdotal histories have uncovered new aspects and hidden dimensions in the lives of our presidents. Now he turns to an uncharted - but unexpectedly revealing - element of our leaders' personalities as he brings us stories of what the presidents did for fun. In thumbnail portraits of every president through George W. Bush, Boller chronicles their taste in games, sports, and cultural activities. George Washington had a passion for dancing and John Quincy Adams skinny-dipped in the Potomac; Grover Cleveland loved beer gardens and Woodrow Wilson made a failed effort to write fiction; Calvin Coolidge cherished his afternoon naps, as did Lyndon Johnson his four-pack-a-day cigarette habit; Jimmy Carter was a surprisingly skilled high diver and Bush Senior loved to parachute. The sketches revitalize even the most familiar of our leaders, showing us a new side of our presidents - and their presidencies.

Publishers Weekly

Overall, this harmless collection of presidential trivia is perfect for those with a taste for such gossip: the toenail clippings of history. Texas Christian University's Boller lays out his survey of chief executive hobbies in 42 short chapters.Washington rode horses, danced and attended the theater. Jefferson liked to hike, invent contraptions, design buildings and study nature. Truman threw horseshoes and played piano. Sometimes Boller must grasp at straws in order to find something to say, since presidents are often, by nature and necessity, workaholics. Since Andrew Johnson entertained himself only by playing with his grandchildren, Boller must give a long peroration on Johnson's defensiveness about his lowly origins. Lyndon Johnson, too, couldn't understand why people wasted time in leisure, but he drove motor boats at recklessly high speeds and we are told at some length what a good dancer he was. The current Bush, as we all know from media reports, likes to exercise, clear brush on his ranch, fish, hunt and golf. Boller's book will be enjoyed by fans of his previous works (Presidential Anecdotes; Presidential Wives) and all others who take their history "light." (June)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

Thumbnail sketches of America's 43 presidents, highlighting the amusements, pastimes and hobbies that helped each shoulder the weight of office. Grant and Harding appear never to have risked working too hard while in office, but most chief executives were type-A personalities who had to be coaxed by family and friends into taking time out for pleasure. Reagan, like Lincoln and FDR before him, took refuge in humorous storytelling, a talent foreign to the rigid Polk, Buchanan and both Adamses. For most of our presidents, their job's all-consuming nature left little time for diversions. Accordingly, Boller (Presidential Campaigns, 2004, etc.) sometimes pads by relating how each man spent his leisure time before and after office. Eisenhower's and Ford's football days were long behind them by the time they entered the White House; Jimmy Carter started writing poetry and Bush I took up skydiving after their presidencies ended. Boller's decision to include a chapter on each of the presidents occasionally leads to strained connections. It's also a stretch to give each chief exec his very own adjective: "studious" Rutherford B. Hayes, "bookish" James A. Garfield, "doughty" Grover Cleveland, etc. Still, taken together, some interesting trends emerge. Presidential exercise? Watch horseback riding give way to walking, then to running and mountain biking. Presidential reading? See Greek and Roman classics replaced by Zane Grey and Ian Fleming. Swimming, fishing and golf emerge as the most popular presidential sports, cards the favorite game. Boller identifies still another constant: the inescapably political dimension to anything a president does, even how he chooses to spend his leisure. BenjaminHarrison was criticized for boating on Sundays; McKinley and Kennedy both hid their enthusiasm for golf (too "undignified" in 1896, too much like Ike in 1960); and Truman moved his poker games from the White House to the presidential yacht. Perhaps better dipped into than read through. Still, an entertaining look at presidents at play.

New interesting textbook: BusinessToday or Information Systems Solutions

J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography

Author: Rick Geary

A True History of Violence (and Crimefighting, Politics, and Power)
 

In the hands of gifted cartoonist Rick Geary, J. Edgar Hoover’s life becomes a timely and pointed guide to eight presidents—from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon—and everything from Prohibition to cold war espionage. From a nascent FBI’s headlinegrabbing tracking down of Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly in the 1930s to Hoover’s increasingly paranoid post-WWII authorizing of illegal wiretaps, blackmail, and circumvention of Supreme Court decisions, J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography provides a special window into the life of an outsized American and a bird’seye view on the twentieth century.

Publishers Weekly

Geary returns to the finely detailed style of historical case study made so fascinating in his Library of Victorian Murder series, this time moving away from visceral horror to the arena of political power and the transgressions wrought by those who wield it. He traces the life and career of the creator of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, weaving a compelling portrait of a man isolated by authority and his desire for secrecy while simultaneously making a name for himself and his agency in the war against organized crime. But behind the details known to the public were petty power plays, possible connections to La Cosa Nostra and rumors of homosexuality and cross-dressing. All surrounded a government official whose ultraconservative ways and fascistic tactics bordered on the criminal when they suited his goals, and led Eleanor Roosevelt to consider the FBI one step away from becoming an American Gestapo. Encompassing events from the Great Depression, WWII, McCarthyism, the Cold War, the Kennedy administration, the Civil Rights movement and Watergate, Geary's work serves as an engrossing, easy to take history lesson. (Jan.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up -This comprehensive, highly detailed account is captivating. Hoover, director of the FBI for nearly 50 years, has been elevated to iconic status in the annals of U.S. history and pop culture. His story is well represented by this master illustrator's old-fashioned, highly stylized, black-and-white line art and high-crime drama-superhero comic-book format. Geary has done his homework: the cover and splash page distinctly mimic 1930s advertisements for the popular Warner Brothersa' film G-Men , showcasing a machine-gun-toting, dapper Hoover looking much like James Cagney, who played him in the movie. The author provides a fascinating look at how pop culture (films, radio, pulp magazines, comic strips, etc.) worked to aggrandize the status of Hoover, who craftily used entertainment for propagandistic and self-promotional purposes. He befriended the likes of Jack Warner, who glamorized the FBI in his film. An interesting point that Geary reiterates is Hoover's strategy to remain nonpartisan while wooing presidential supporters from both parties. He maintains an unbiased, objective point of view, but still dishes up some dirt. This excellent graphic biography makes the life of Hoover and the history of the FBI both accessible and engaging.-Jodi Mitchell, Berkeley Public Library, CA

Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The life and times of America's top cop, by prolific author/artist Geary (The Bloody Benders, 2007, etc.). His work for National Lampoon and Heavy Metal illustrates his long-standing taste for the pulpier side of things, but Geary also does solid work in historical comics, albeit ones with a gruesome true-crime slant. He brings the same clean artwork and swift but steady pacing to his graphic biography of J. Edgar Hoover. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1895, Hoover came from a religious clan whose "family business" was the federal bureaucracy. Obsessively hardworking from an early age, with few friends but a careful eye toward staying politically neutral in order to advance his career, Hoover swiftly moved up the ladder from a lowly Department of Justice post procured for him by a cousin in 1917 to head the Bureau of Investigation by 1924. Geary expertly marks the exacting effort with which Hoover set out during the Depression years to transform the oft-ignored, nearly powerless bureau into a well-publicized and widely idealized national crime-fighting, gangster-busting force. Hoover was obsessed almost equally by fighting what he saw as the immoral poison of liberalism and by consolidating his power with that of the FBI-the two often seen as the same thing to Hoover and, thanks to his intense media lobbying, to the nation itself. In the postwar years, he became the embodiment of an American reactionary. Geary doesn't stoop to rumor-mongering about Hoover's sexuality-he points out that the cross-dressing story is most likely false-but he gives the director's lengthy, marriage-like relationship with second-in-command Clyde Tolson the importance it deserves, particularly since Hoover publiclyproclaimed such a rigid, outdated view of sexual morality. As solid, thrilling and informative a guide to the life of the America's most powerful authoritarian as one could ask for.