John Taliaferro
Autor/a de All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt
Sobre l'autor
John Taliaferro is a graduate of Harvard College, a former senior editor at Newsweek, and the author of four previous books. He lives in Austin, Texas, and Pray, Montana.
Obres de John Taliaferro
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Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
- Data de naixement
- 1952-02-12
- Gènere
- male
- Biografia breu
- John Taliaferro is a graduate of Harvard College and a former senior editor at Newsweek. He is the author of four previous books: Charles M. Russell: The Life and Legend of America’s Cowboy Artist; Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs; Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore; and In a Far Country: The True Story of a Mission, a Marriage, a Murder, and the Remarkable Reindeer Rescue of 1898. He and his wife, artist Malou Flato, live in Austin, Texas, and Pray, Montana.
http://johntaliaferrobooks.com/about/...
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All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from… de John Taliaferro
Great way to learn history, by reading the bio of a man who was at the forefront of almost everything that happened in US history from 1860-1905.
There's a famous photo of Abraham Lincoln with his two private secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, that almost every Lincoln fan will be aware of. In it John Hay, age 24, stands with his hand on the back of Lincoln's armchair in easy intimacy, his right knee relaxed, his left arm akimbo and holding his hat. His clothes are notably more stylish than Nicolay's office attire and Lincoln's formal suit. He's the picture of confidence, and you want to learn more about him, especially after you find out that he ended his career as the greatest Secretary of State to that point (under William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt) and that he was also close by during the assassinations of James Garfield and McKinley.
John Hay had style, and this biography does not. It is complete as can be, yet dry and unspeculative. Too little attention is paid to the times in which Hay moved; too little effort is made to consider what historical documents leave out. This is nowhere more apparent than in the treatment of Hay's marriage to a strikingly plain heiress, and his nearly lifelong love affair with a beautiful politician's wife. The biographer does not venture a word about the inferences that might be drawn from the engagement of a talented, somewhat famous young man with relatively little money to the—let's say it—ugly daughter of one of the country's richest men, and his subsequent employment by his new father-in-law. In a more vivid biography, one whose boldness lies elsewhere, this reticence might represent admirable restraint, but in a book that lacks boldness altogether, it only reads as timidity and lack of imagination.
It doesn't help that John Hay led a largely charmed life and was rarely faced with a challenge he didn't overcome. But such a subject means that the biographer has to spend particular effort describing the drama of the times in which his subject played an important part. Instead, Hay's time with Lincoln is discussed not in terms of his position as a resident of the White House during the most dramatic times it's ever seen, but more as if its importance lies mainly in the fact that it was Hay's first job. Did he do a good job? Yes, he was very good. He might have even authored the Bixby letter signed with Lincoln's name. But Lincoln died, and that put Hay out of work. On to Hay's trip to Paris....
There's a passage near the beginning of Mark Twain's autobiography that tells a funny and sad story about Hay, who had been a pal of Twain's when they both worked on Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. I'm tempted to copy out the whole thing here—it's more lifelike and telling in two pages than anything in the 600-page biography.… (més)
John Hay had style, and this biography does not. It is complete as can be, yet dry and unspeculative. Too little attention is paid to the times in which Hay moved; too little effort is made to consider what historical documents leave out. This is nowhere more apparent than in the treatment of Hay's marriage to a strikingly plain heiress, and his nearly lifelong love affair with a beautiful politician's wife. The biographer does not venture a word about the inferences that might be drawn from the engagement of a talented, somewhat famous young man with relatively little money to the—let's say it—ugly daughter of one of the country's richest men, and his subsequent employment by his new father-in-law. In a more vivid biography, one whose boldness lies elsewhere, this reticence might represent admirable restraint, but in a book that lacks boldness altogether, it only reads as timidity and lack of imagination.
It doesn't help that John Hay led a largely charmed life and was rarely faced with a challenge he didn't overcome. But such a subject means that the biographer has to spend particular effort describing the drama of the times in which his subject played an important part. Instead, Hay's time with Lincoln is discussed not in terms of his position as a resident of the White House during the most dramatic times it's ever seen, but more as if its importance lies mainly in the fact that it was Hay's first job. Did he do a good job? Yes, he was very good. He might have even authored the Bixby letter signed with Lincoln's name. But Lincoln died, and that put Hay out of work. On to Hay's trip to Paris....
There's a passage near the beginning of Mark Twain's autobiography that tells a funny and sad story about Hay, who had been a pal of Twain's when they both worked on Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. I'm tempted to copy out the whole thing here—it's more lifelike and telling in two pages than anything in the 600-page biography.… (més)
Basement bookshelf between fireplace and office
Second shelf from the top
Second shelf from the top
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