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American history, biographies, book reviews, Clarence Darrow, John Farrell, presidential biographies, Richard Nixon, Tip O'Neill, US Presidents
Published in 2017, John Farrell’s “Richard Nixon: The Life” is the most recent comprehensive, single-volume biography of Nixon. Farrell is a former White House correspondent for The Boston Globe and The Denver Post and is the author of award-winning biographies of Massachusetts congressman Tip O’Neill and attorney Clarence Darrow.
This 558-paged biography proves balanced, lucid and consistently captivating. It begins with Nixon’s run for Congress in 1945 before back-tracking briefly to review his early life. In more-or-less chronological fashion, the book proceeds through his Senatorial career, his service as vice president, his “wilderness” years, his now-infamous presidency and his fascinating two-decade retirement.
In a world well-stocked with Nixon biographies, Farrell’s claim-to-fame involves his discovery of notes penned by Nixon’s chief of staff that show Nixon sabotaged LBJ’s peace initiative with North Vietnam in 1968 for political gain. But beyond that notable revelation, Farrell provides other fresh insights…and he saturates the narrative with clever quips and brilliant one-liners.
Farrell describes Nixon’s wilderness years more colorfully than I have seen elsewhere and his examination of Nixon’s efforts to enhance America’s relationship with China is excellent. Also included is a particularly thoughtful review of civil rights issues during the course of Nixon’s political career, and Farrell is able to distill the complicated decades-long conflict in Vietnam to its most comprehensible essence.
But the best aspect of this biography is probably its review of Watergate. Farrell moves through this sordid tale efficiently, providing just enough detail to inform a Nixon-era novice while providing an engrossing narrative for readers already familiar with this political tragedy. These sixty or so pages are refreshingly clear, cogent and convincing.
Although some readers have proclaimed this the new “definitive” biography of Nixon, it has its share of flaws. In the interest of efficiency much of Nixon’s life is covered too quickly. His first three decades, for instance, only receive about forty pages of coverage – not nearly enough to fully examine these critical years when his character was being forged.
Other important moments are considered with comparative haste or only modest scrutiny: the Checkers speech, his vice presidential trip to Asia and his Cabinet selection as president-elect, to name a few. In addition, Farrell’s inclusion of historical context is rather uneven. At times this book seems to be more history than biography while at others times context is almost entirely lacking.
But the most disappointing aspect of this biography for some will be that despite its compelling insights, revealing quotes and keen observations, Nixon remains stubbornly enigmatic. Farrell’s reluctance to psychoanalyze the man will please purists but leave others searching for a better sense for the origin and evolution of Nixon’s pernicious personality.
Overall, “Richard Nixon: The Life” is a mostly-familiar story which proves nicely balanced and quite well-told. Readers familiar with Nixon’s life are likely to find just enough fresh insights and good writing to justify “one more” Nixon biography while readers new to Nixon will find Farrell’s biography a terrific introduction to this oddly fascinating and sadly self-destructive politician.
Overall rating: 4 stars
My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies 
I have this book in my shopping cart. The only other bio I have read on Nixon was Black’s book, which you reviewed last time. I can’t quite remember why I didn’t like that one so much since I really liked his treatment of FDR, but I’m looking forward reading Farrell’s book.
Although I rated Farrell’s book more highly than Black’s, reading Farrell’s made me better appreciate some of the detail which was embedded in Black’s and which was missing here. I never would have thought of 558 pages as “too short” but I think Farrell could have used an extra 50 or so to flesh out a few areas.
“Fleshing out” is a good point for any of these presidential biographies. Going too far may detract some (for instance, Caro’s treatment on LBJ which I also have on my bookshelf), but also going in the other direction can be a minus, too. I finished reading Jean Edward Smith’s Bush and came away wanting more. Although the book is something like 700 pages, I felt that he could have extended it even farther in some places like the handling of the war and so forth. I guess it’s a pendulum that swings from one end to the other, and very hard to get it to that sweet spot, personal tastes notwithstanding.
Really liked this one. I don’t know that it has a lot of fresh info (besides the Haldeman memo you mention), but Farrell does a lot better job grappling with Nixon’s contradictions and the strangeness of his personality than most other writers. It’s my favorite single volume bio by a pretty wide margin.
*single volume Nixon bio
I’ve never read anything by Farrell yet. But I do have this book in my shopping cart and I already have his bio on Darrow sitting on my bookshelf. Looking forward to his writing!
I enjoyed this book. The other nixon books I’ve read are Ambrose’s 3 volume nixon set. You haven’t gotten there yet, but I felt the same about Ambrose’s RN series the way you did about his eisenhower books.
This one was solid and balanced. Nixon is someone I always enjoy reading about, because there’s a lot to unpack in his presidency and personality. I’ve got Perlstein’s ‘Nixonland’ on the shelf, which is more of a political history of the time than a standard bio. Looking forward to reading more of your reviews!
Just starting the book. So far it seems to be well written. Will let you know what I think when I finish it.
Completed it a month ago. Thought it gave the best explanation of how ‘Nixon became NIxon’. Farrell goes through NIxon’s life methodically to give the reader on how NIxon became the President he did by 1969. Recommend it for lovers of presidential biographies.
I’ve just finished the final volume in the Ambrose trilogy, so I’ve wrapped up a dozen biographies of Nixon….and Farrell’s still stands out (not by a huge margin, but by a discernible one) as my favorite biography of this controversial man. I, too, recommend it both for lovers of great bios as well as anyone interested in learning about Nixon(!)
I must admit, I had low expectations for this book because I’ve known the author for a few years and know the depth of his loathing for Nixon. Knowing his extreme prejudice against Nixon caused me to have legitimate doubts about his objectivity in writing this book. I finally checked it out from my library and while I haven’t read the whole book, I read the final chapter (which felt far too brief for a period spanning 20 years) and was pleased to see him include some excellent balancing points in Nixon’s favor. Overall, this chapter seemed to be fairly balanced. He even discussed the fact that the Watergate prosecutors, and even trial judge Sirica himself, were engaged in illegal collusion as they coordinated their efforts to achieve convictions at any cost. Having read that chapter, I may cave and buy this book to add to my collection and read it in its entirety in the future. Of course, one of its biggest flaws is his extremely overplayed hand on the Chennault affair and his treatment of that dubious letter as more legitimate than it is actually considered within the academic community, where it is viewed skeptically and of far less importance than Farrell makes it out to be.