A review by joyfulme
Coolidge by Amity Shlaes

4.0

Phenomenally thorough biography for a man who was silent and whose greatest impact was felt in areas as dry as tax policies and tariffs, and whose greatest accomplishments were wiped out by his immediate successors. How thorough? When Coolidge receives a gift, we are told who gave it, from where it was purchased, and Coolidge’s opinion of the establishment. We are told the shops he visited on vacation, the name of the officiant of his wedding, the titles of the books on his shelves. The author takes a paragraph to discuss the police union president even though he won’t feature again in the rest of the book, but in the minutiae one develops a more comprehensive picture of the type of work history that might be found in a prominent police office in Boston. And similarly, one walks away from this dense biography with a much clearer picture of life in the 1920s, which in turn increases our understanding of Coolidge himself, and the landscape of political and economic philosophy of the times. By the end of the book I found that I was irrationally sympathetic with Coolidge. Hoover annoys me. And Roosevelt infuriates me. I want to sit on Coolidge’s front porch and brood alongside him. How am I suddenly so drawn to politics that have long since passed? At the same time, at 450+ pages, I was eager to move on.