Contemporary Literary Criticism | Ambrose, Stephen - John Charmley (review date 4 July 1987)

John Charmley (review date 4 July 1987)

SOURCE: “A Classical Hero with Blue Jowls,” in Spectator, July 4, 1987, pp. 32-3.

[In the following review of Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962, Charmley praises Ambrose's study of Nixon as “a superb biography which comes as near to explaining its subject as any biographer can hope for.”]

In an era when appearances count for so much in politics, especially the American brand, Richard Nixon was bound to have a hard time of it; those blue jowls and that ski-slope nose ensured that whatever else he was, he was not telegenic. The famous 1960 debates between him and Kennedy saw a confrontation not between age and youth (the two men were almost of an age), but rather between the old politics, based upon hard work in the country, and the new politics, based upon meretricious performances on the television screen: Nixon's personality was always too complex to lend itself to...

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