品牌：
基本信息
·出版社：Scribner Book Company
·页码：640 页码
·出版日：2000年
·ISBN：0743200411
·条码：9780743200417
·版次：2000-10-01
·装帧：平装
·开本：16开 16开
内容简介
Book Description
Though reticent in public, George Bush has openly shared his private thoughts in correspondence throughout his life. Fortunately, since the former president does not plan to write his autobiography, this collection of letters, diary entries, and memos, with his accompanying commentary, will fill that void. As he writes in his preface, "So what we have here are letters from the past and present. Letters that are light and hopefully amusing. Letters written when my heart was heavy or full of joy. Serious letters. Nutty letters. Caring and rejoicing letters...It's all about heartbeat."
Organized chronologically, the volume begins with eighteen-year-old George's letters to his parents during World War II, when, at the time he was commissioned, he was the youngest pilot in the Navy. Readers will gain insights into Bush's career highlights — the oil business, his two terms in Congress, his ambassadorship to the U.N., his service as an envoy to China, his tenure with the Central Intelligence Agency, and of course, the vice presidency, the presidency, and the postpresidency. They will also observe a devoted husband, father, and American. Ranging from a love letter to Barbara and a letter to his mother about missing his daughter, Robin, after her death from leukemia to a letter to his children two weeks before Nixon's resignation to one written to them just before the beginning of Desert Storm, the writings are remarkable for their candor, humor, and poignancy.
Amazon.com
In lieu of a memoir, All the Best, George Bush collects correspondence and diary entries from the former U.S. president to show, as he says, "what my own heartbeat is, what my values are, what has motivated me in life." The letters begin in 1942--when, fresh out of high school, Bush volunteered for U.S. Navy flight school--and continue to the brink of the 21st century, as the retired chief executive worries about the Melissa virus infecting his office's server and keeping his visiting grandchildren in line. ("I realize," he muses, "Keep the freezer door closed from now on and I mean it lacks the rhetorical depth of This will not stand or Read my lips.") All the Best hits all the highlights of Bush's career, from the Texas oil business to his role as ambassador to China, then CIA director, vice president under Ronald Reagan, and finally president himself. Along the way, he reveals a personality that is at turns compassionate, respectful, silly, doting, and resolute--a man for whom being a father and a grandfather matters as much as, and maybe even more than, being leader of the free world. Fans and detractors alike will find in All the Best an intimate human portrait that offers as sure a self-definition of Bush's personal life as A World Transformed did his presidential career.
FromPublishers Weekly
To the present governors of Texas and Florida, his sons George and Jeb, who worried that they might upstage their famous dad, former President Bush wrote: "Do not worry when you see the stories that compare you favorably to a Dad for whom English was a second language." President Bush was indeed famously inarticulate in public. But in this collection of diary entries, memos and letters written between 1942, when he started navy flight school, to March 1999, when he wrote a friend to express his consternation that his e-mail server was down, Bush proves himself to have been a gracious and staggeringly prolific correspondent. There are long letters, such as the September 1944 missive to his parents relating how he was shot down over the Pacific. And there are truly funny diary entries from his presidency about the Scowcroft Award, a running gag in the Bush cabinet named after National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who apparently had an uncanny knack for napping in meetings: "A fantastic challenge by Ed Derwinski. very firm eye closure and a remarkable recovery gambit." Naturally, there are long letters to world leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, King Hussein, Mikhail Gorbachev and others about matters of historical import. Diary entries cover the Tiananmen Square massacre, the failed coup against Gorbachev, the Gulf War and other crises (though there's hardly anything about the Iran-contra scandal). Rarely does Bush display any partisan bitterness, and even then it's not very pungent (though he's consistently irked by the press). Bush must have been tempted to write a memoir intended to beat historians to the interpretive punch. This modest alternative is refreshing and, in many ways, will shed more light on the man's personal character and public persona than any memoir or biography could. It offers an intriguing picture of a man who takes fierce pride in his modesty.
FromKirkus Reviews
The former president presents his autobiography in the form of annotated letters, journal entries, a few speeches, and assorted documents. Like many collections of letters, this one is not uniformly interesting. Some of the scores of letters are dull, some superfluous, others patently self-serving (and readers may wonder if the many ellipses replace some of the most revealing passages). But Bush emerges as an uncomplicated, decent, thoughtful mana man who unashamedly espouses the values of hearth, home, and friendship (and dog ownership!), who was at all times exactly what he appeared to be, who loved his wife (he says that he wants on his gravestone only these words: ``He loved Barbara very much''), loved his children, loved his country. The letters are chronologicalbeginning with a section called ``Love and War,'' ending with ``Looking Forward''and chronicle in surprising detail Bush's life from his 1942 enlistment in the navy to the present. In the letters (and in his accompanying notes) are some fascinating comments and events. Young Barbara (not yet his wife) was ``so darn attractive''; Bill Clinton (then governor) was ``a very nice man''; John Dean (the Watergate whistle-blower) was ``a small, slimy guy''; Pat Buchanan could be ``mean and ugly''; Barbara snores; Bush ``never regretted'' selecting Dan Quayle as his running mate; he was enraged at Newsweek for a cover story that suggested he was a wimp; and his ``damnedest experience'' was throwing up on the Japanese prime minister in 1992. Although Bush hates psychological profiles, he reveals a bit of his inner life here, most poignantly so when he admits that his loss to Clinton ``hurt, hurt, hurt.'' Somewhat nettlesome is Bush's insistence on referring to just about everyone as a friend, close friend, or great friend. Please. One must search carefully in this large brown carpet to find the silver and golden threadsbut they are there.
FromLibrary Journal
As former president Bush evidently does not intend to write an autobiography, this volume of selected letters, diary entries, and memos will have to do.
About Author
George Bush, forty-first president of the United States (1989-1993), is the coauthor with Brent Scowcroft of the 1998 critically acclaimed book A World Transformed. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Houston, Texas, and Kennebunkport, Maine.
Book Dimension:
length: (cm)23.7 width:(cm)15.6
作者简介
GEORGE BUSH,forty-first president of the United States(1989-1993),is the coauthor with Brent Scowcroft of the 1998 critically acclaimed book a World Transformed.He and his wife,Barbara,live in Houston,Texas,and Kennebunkport,Maine.
目录
GLOSSARY OF NAMES
PREFACE
1 Love and War
2 "Texas,Our Texas"
3 Potomac Fever
4 International Waters
5 The Eye of the Storm
6 China
7 Protecting Secrets
8 "Fire in the Belly"
9 A Heartbeat Away
10 The Rough-and-Tumble
11 The Long Home Stretch
12 "Mr.President"
13 On the Front Line
14 Peaks and Valleys
15 The Worst of Times
16 Looking Forward
TIMELINE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
……[看更多目录]
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