Coolidge

Name: Coolidge
Brand: Harper Audio
Availability: InStock
Rating: 3.5 (10 reviews)
Author: Amity Shlaes
ISBN: 9780062116093

Author: Amity Shlaes

Narrator: Terence Aselford

Unabridged: 42 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/12/2013

Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Political Biography, History, Us History, Modern History

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, delivers a brilliant and provocative reexamination of America’s thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge, and the decade of unparalleled growth that the nation enjoyed under his leadership. In this riveting biography, Shlaes traces Coolidge’s improbable rise from a tiny town in New England to a youth so unpopular he was shut out of college fraternities at Amherst College up through Massachusetts politics. After a divisive period of government excess and corruption, Coolidge restored national trust in Washington and achieved what few other peacetime presidents have: He left office with a federal budget smaller than the one he inherited. A man of calm discipline, he lived by example, renting half of a two-family house for his entire political career rather than compromise his political work by taking on debt. Renowned as a throwback, Coolidge was in fact strikingly modern—an advocate of women’s suffrage and a radio pioneer. At once a revision of man and economics, Coolidge gestures to the country we once were and reminds us of qualities we had forgotten and can use today.

About Amity Shlaes

Amity Shlaes is the author of four New York Times bestsellers: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man/Graphic, Coolidge, and The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy. Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Book Prize, and serves as a scholar at the King’s College. Twitter: @amityshlaes

Reviews

Goodreads review by Amity on March 17, 2014

This is just a note from the author to say: hope you enjoy COOLIDGE. He was much fun to follow. Please talk to me and CC on the author page on facebook, we do answer emails there. We also have an author page, Amityshlaes.com. A number of book clubs have asked why COOLIDGE might be of interest. Here ar......more

Goodreads review by Peter on February 25, 2020

I'll never understand why some people rate biographies based on how much they like the person in question, especially when it comes to Presidents. Whether you're a fan of Coolidge or not, this book was incredibly well-written, researched, and shined a light on one of those presidents that you never......more

Goodreads review by Mara on March 06, 2014

Despite Amity Shlaes hitting all the requisites for a good biography, Calvin Coolidge has earned a spot on my meh list (though, rumor has it, such lists are, themselves now considered ’meh’). Maybe I was biased by his little stern, lipless face but he just never struck me as being all that likable. ......more

Goodreads review by Tim on December 31, 2023

This is a pretty good biography to get a feel for why someone might admire Calvin Coolidge, and even rank him as one of the top Presidents. I don’t think it will be convincing to anyone who doesn’t share Amity Shlaes’s right-wing political views, but it may have some enlightening aspects to anyone i......more

Goodreads review by Adam on February 23, 2013

Is there greatness in inaction? We have a tendency to celebrate leaders - and Presidents - who are doers. In that sense, Amity Shales' "Coolidge" is truly a sequel to her last book, the genuinely excellent "The Forgotten Man." In that book she argued that Franklin Roosevelt - though he remains one o......more