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The definitive biography of one of the most remarkable Americans of the twentieth century, Herbert Hoover--a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism--Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents, conventionally seen only as a heartless failure for his handling of the Great Depression. Kenneth Whyte fully captures this rich, dramatic life: from Hoover's difficult childhood to his meteoric business career, his work saving hundreds of thousands of lives during World War I and after the 1927 Mississippi floods, his presidency, his painful defeat by Roosevelt, and his return to grace as Truman's emissary to help European refugees after World War II. Whyte brings to life Hoover's complexity and contradictions--his modesty and ambition, ruthlessness and extreme generosity--as well as his political legacy. Here is the epic, poignant story of the poor boy who became the most accomplished figure of his time, who worked ceaselessly to fight the Depression yet became the public face of America's greatest economic crisis. Here, for the first time, is the definitive biography that captures the full scale of this extraordinary life.



About the Author

Kenneth Whyte

Kenneth Whyte is the author of Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, the definitive biography of America's 31st president (Knopf, 2017) . He is also the author of The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst, which was a Washington Post and Toronto Globe & Mail book of the year and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography and three other awards.Mr. Whyte is currently at work on his third book, which he is determined to finish in two years while serving as chairman of the Donner Canadian Foundation, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University, and a Senior Fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute.He is an award-winning journalist, editor, and publisher of leading Canadian newspapers and magazines. He was President of Rogers Publishing (Canada's largest magazine publishing company) , President of Next Issue Canada (now Texture) , and Senior Vice President of Public Policy at Rogers Communications. He has vowed never to return to the telecom industry.Mr. Whyte has been a senior fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto and a visiting scholar at McGill University. He is an Honorary Lifetime Alumnus of McGill, a distinction of which the three-time university drop-out is inordinately proud.



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