George H. Nash is a historian, lecturer, and authority on the life of Herbert Hoover. His publications include three volumes of a definitive, scholarly biography of Hoover and the monograph Herbert Hoover and Stanford University. Nash is also the author of The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 and Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservatism. A graduate of Amherst College, USA and holder of a PhD in history from Harvard University, USA he received the Richard M. Weaver Prize for Scholarly Letters in 2008.
"The Crusade Years fills a crucial gap in the literary legacy left
by our thirty-first president in the years after he left the White
House. Another important piece of the Hoover puzzle, it complements
Freedom Betrayed, posthumously plugging gaps in domestic policy as
the earlier book did for foreign policy. Beyond the political wars,
it illuminates the human side of Hoover: his family and hobbies,
love of fishing, of people, and of his alma mater. The orphan's
heart also lingered long over the plight of America's children,
demonstrated by his contributions to the Boys' Clubs of America.
Editor George H. Nash provides an introductory analysis of Hoover's
life, establishes the historical context for the evolution of the
manuscript, and elucidates Hoover's motives and methodology. This
long-delayed, scrupulously edited book is essential to
understanding our most active and tenacious ex-president, a
cornerstone in the written legacy compiled by this prolific
statesman and his most indefatigable historian." --GLEN JEANSONNE
is professor of history, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and
author of The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker,
1928-1933.
"For many years Herbert Hoover worked on a memoir of his post
presidential years, almost until his death at ninety. Now George
Nash, the premier historian of American conservatism, has unearthed
this vast work from the Hoover Institution Archives and has edited
it for publication. Nash has also provided an illuminating
introduction to this fine contribution to the historical record."
--MICHAEL BARONE is senior political analyst at the Washington
Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and
coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics.
"Herbert Hoover, self-styled crusader, is in full flower in these
pages--part memoirist, part polemicist, coupling intimate
portraiture with a public history that is profoundly relevant. Once
again George Nash demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge of all
things Hoover, while assembling the former president's intellectual
brief against the New Deal in a style that is both highly readable
and faithful to its author's sometimes quirky standards. Together
with its companion volume, Freedom Betrayed, The Crusade Years
completes at last the sprawling work of revisionism Hoover called
'my Roosevelt book.' It is, in fact, much more than that. It is
hard to imagine any comprehensive account of those tumultuous years
that fails to incorporate the evidence compiled by Hoover and made
accessible to modern Americans by his foremost interpreter."
--RICHARD NORTON SMITH is a presidential historian and author,
former director of several presidential libraries, and current
scholar-in-residence at George Mason University.
"Herbert Hoover's life, despite his difficult presidency, was
followed by his many humanitarian works. After World War II, he
worked to provide food for the new Germany. Hoover helped provide
40,000 tons of food for more than three million children. Few
people, both before and after his presidency, have done more to
help so many people." --ALAN BRINKLEY is Allan Nevins Professor of
History and provost emeritus at Columbia University, and author of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and The Publisher: Henry Luce and his
American Century.
"In his extensive introduction, editor Nash pieces together the
story of how this manuscript and another 900-page volume,
containing Hoover's analysis and criticism of Franklin Roosevelt's
foreign policy (also edited by Nash, and published in 2011 as
Freedom Betrayed, CH, May'12, 49-5253), were discovered. The
primary value of this new work lies in the vignettes Hoover
includes about his personal life, and the detailed account (from
his perspective) of his crusade against 'New Deal collectivism, '
which encompassed much of his postpresidential life." --K.J.
Volanto, Choice Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
"Superbly introduced and edited by acclaimed Herbert Hoover
biographer George H. Nash, The Crusade Years is far more than a
simple apologia pro vita sua. It offers touching glimpses into
Hoover's rich personal life and a trenchant critique of the
post-New Deal American social contract that amounts to nothing less
than the cornerstone of modern conservatism. By turns intimate,
humorous, and combative--even occasionally petulant--this last
volume of Hoover's memoirs will interest historians and general
readers alike." --DAVID KENNEDY is professor of history emeritus at
Stanford University and the author of Freedom from Fear: The
American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945.
"The meticulous editing of George H. Nash, the dean of Hoover
scholars, adds value to Hoover's own work. Nash clarifies,
confirms, amplifies, excises, and explains, with impeccable
judgment, letting Hoover speak, but elucidating language and
obscure references." --Glen Jeansonne, Annals of Iowa
"Through tenacious and persistent scholarship coupled with artful
editing, George H. Nash, the dean of Hoover scholars, has admirably
reconstructed Hoover's last literary effort, a missing link long
unknown to scholars. In The Crusade Years the guarded, enigmatic
ex-president candidly discusses his personal and family life and
clearly articulates his objections to collectivism while forcefully
arguing for a realist political philosophy based on individualism
and volunteerism. The Crusade Years establishes Hoover as one of
the preeminent political thinkers of the last century, a man who
developed a 'political yardstick' useful in analyzing today's
topsy-turvy politics." --HAL ELLIOTT WERT is professor of history,
Kansas City Art Institute, and author of Hoover, the Fishing
President: Portrait of the Private Man and His Life Outdoors.
"With unparalleled and meticulous scholarship, editor George Nash
reveals the Herbert Hoover we never knew: the prophet. It is
striking how powerful Hoover's warnings against statist
progressivism remain--how easily these pages could be turned into
blogposts as conservatives battle 'progressives' in our own day."
--AMITY SHLAES, author, Coolidge and The Forgotten Man: A New
History of the Depression
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
