Skip to main content

The Presidency of William Howard Taft by Paolo Coletta

 


Wow, long time no write. This one took me about 9 days to finish, and then I was busy moving and didn't have Internet for four days! As such, my memory is probably a bit spotty.

This is my first president biography I'm writing about! For background, I'm reading a biography on every U.S. president. I love U.S. history, and I think it's interesting to read about it from the perspective of the men who wield the power (perspective isn't exactly the right word, but it's 7 a.m. so I'm going with it). I started 10 years ago, so it's pretty slow going—in my defense, I was in Korea for two years, where it's (shocker) difficult to find books on U.S. presidents, and when you read them chronologically, it starts to get very repetitive....especially with the early presidents. 

I found this book to be wildly disappointing. It was the only non-children's book on Taft that my library had, so I didn't have a lot of options. I'm putting Taft on my list of presidents to revisit because I don't think this book did him justice. I'm really interested in what shaped the presidents into the men they are, and what they did with their time post-presidency. This book was strictly on the presidency, so I missed all my favorite parts. I think it's so interesting that he went on to be Chief Justice but I didn't get to read anything about that! He's one of the few presidents to return to civil service post-presidency....I feel so cheated. But I can't blame the book for that—the title is literal, so I knew what I was getting into.

I don't like presidential biographies that are ordered by topic rather than chronologically, and unfortunately this one was by topic. I can understand the appeal—learn all about the foreign policies at one time!—but I find it sloppy. Other topics related to the topic at hand are brought up, but that topic isn't discussed in full until the next chapter, so I'm left scratching my head because the author assumes the reader is already knowledgeable. In this book in particular, Roosevelt and Taft's disagreements are frequently brought up, but they aren't discussed until the latter half of the book, so I was constantly asking myself, "Wait, why are they fighting?" I knew to some extent having read a Roosevelt biography already, but I wasn't as familiar with Taft's perspective, so it was very annoying. And on that note, Roosevelt was featured far too heavily. I know he directly led to Taft being elected and then no re-elected but it almost felt like a Taft and Roosevelt biography. I already read up on Roosevelt (twice, because the first book was lackluster); I don't need to read about him again. 

My other problem with this book was....well, actually, there are a lot, like it's super dry and the writing wasn't fantastic—it felt like reading a history textbook. But, there was one sentence in there about how one of Taft's military aide died on the Titanic. One sentence! That's so interesting! Tell me more about how Taft dealt with the Titanic tragedy, especially considering one of his top staff members died on it. And then I realized, we didn't really get to hear about any of the little, interesting things going on at the time. Recession, Panama Canal, blah blah blah. What did the people care about? What were the big news stories outside politics? I thought it was fascinating how high the cost of living was, and everything about implementing income tax. Tell me more about the American people and how policies affected them, and less about Cabinet members and congressmen arguing. 

Do you know how many times the book mentioned Arizona and New Mexico statehood? A lot. Do you know how many times it actually talked about them going through the statehood process and the dates they became states? Never. Way to leave that dangling—this New Mexican was interested in that topic. I can't think of other specific topics where we were introduced to something and then never got the payout, but my gut is saying Arizona and New Mexico statehood was not the only time it happened. 

So, all-in-all, Taft deserves another turn around the block. This book was lackluster to the extreme. I actually read his Wikipedia page when I finished. As for Taft as a president—he didn't seem bad nor good, so very much a middle-of-the-road guy.

Completed: 20 January 2021
Rating: 1/5
Recommend: No 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

  **SPOILERS BE HERE** I am whelmed. I'm also ignoring that this is a fictionalized account of William and Kate. The beginning of the book was great! I was super into it and it was cheesy cute, which was exactly what I needed after reading the very dry  Presidency of William Howard Taft . I love how Bex and Nick bonded over a trashy TV show and Twinkies. They were so cute together. But it went south pretty quickly after Part 1. This book was just so long . It does span eight years, but I couldn't have told you that because the time jumps were difficult to follow. Has a year passed? Have three? Who knows? What could have been the most interesting parts were completely skipped over—Bex goes home to finish university but it's only briefly mentioned. Visit the long-distance relationship and her decision to move to England! Her father dies but we barely get to see her grieving (not due to a time jump). What about her settling into a new country full time? Or her job, which is ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Translated by Norman Denny)

  **SPOILERS BE HERE** Last year, I decided to read War and Peace  and Les Miserables  in 2020. They're both around 360 chapters long, so reading two chapters a day would enable me to finish them both by the end of the year.  I succeeded!  I actually finished War and Peace  in April (cuz COVID) and then waited until July to start Les Miserables. I've also already read Les Miserables  twice before now, but this was my first time reading this translation. I prefer the Fahnestock/MacAfee/Wilbour translation; I wasn't a fan of how this one cut out two sections and added them to the end.  Oh wait! I've read an abridged version, too, one based on the 1998 film with Liam Neeson. That one is terrible; unabridged or bust! Ok so maybe not unabridged or bust. If you had asked me about 10 years ago (the last time I read it), I would have said that, but now I think some sections could be reduced or cut out. Those two that were slapped onto the end weren't very...
Post a Comment
Read more

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

 SPOILERS BE HERE I really wanted to enjoy this book, but it fell flat for me. I 100% believe part of that was due to me listening to it rather than reading it—I drifted in and out and couldn't keep the characters straight, specifically Izzy and Lexie; something about their names is too similar. I think the plot was interesting, but actions were random and didn't make sense. Why did Mia keep Pearl? I never felt like that decision was fully explored—she just up and left. And why did Izzy (...not Lexie, right?) set fires in the house? That seemed like such an extreme response to the things that happened. The characters were not fleshed out enough. I also felt like I was being led a little too much to sympathize with certain characters and dislike others.  I said the plot was interesting; it was also clunky. It jumped around from one thing to another so sporadically that it felt like a different book at times. It could have been handled a lot more smoothly by cutting some of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more