Publishers Weekly
04/03/2023
Historian Smith (On His Own Terms), the former director of the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library, delivers an exhaustive account of Ford’s life and presidency. Painting his subject as someone “who thought for themselves, did his homework,” Smith tracks Ford’s rise from the only child of an abusive marriage that ended just weeks after his birth in 1913, to standout college football player, freshman congressman from western Michigan, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, replacement for disgraced vice president Spiro Agnew, and president following Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Devoting the bulk of the book to Ford’s presidency, Smith meticulously details key moments, including the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to secure Nixon’s resignation, negotiations over the 1975 Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union (“Widely denounced at the time... now regarded as an important milestone on the road to European liberation,” Smith contends), and the hard-fought battle to secure the 1976 Republican presidential nomination over Ronald Reagan. Though Smith makes a convincing case that Ford’s affability and bipartisanship made him the right person to replace Nixon, the narrative sometimes sags under the weight of its voluminous detail. Still, this is a solid and revealing biography of an underestimated president. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Richard Norton Smith had brought a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and storytelling verve to the life of a consequential president—Gerald R. Ford. Ford’s is a very American life, and Smith has charted its vicissitudes and import with great grace and illuminating perspective. A marvelous achievement!” — Jon Meacham
“Scintillatingly told . . . [a] timely and revelatory 832-page biography.” — George F. Will, The Washington Post
“Gerald Ford is probably remembered more for how he got to the presidency than for what he did there. In this brilliant book, Richard Norton Smith tells the rest of the story. On every other page I found something I didn’t know, bringing new and important insights into how Ford kept the nation together and moved it past its most severe political crisis since the Civil War. It will become the definitive work on Ford and his presidency." — Bob Schieffer, CBS News
"Richard Norton Smith's monumental An Ordinary Man is a comprehensive, brilliant biography of Gerald Ford; solidly researched, crisply written, both objective and persuasive. . . . This is the definitive work on Ford that will stand the test of time." — Douglas Brinkley, author of Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening
“[A] superb . . . biography . . . . Mr. Smith describes, in nuanced detail, how Ford gradually stopped defending Nixon and how, prompted by Betty, he was careful not to promise a pardon in return for Nixon’s resignation. . . . Mr. Smith brings exhaustive research and graceful prose to this engrossing biography of a not-so-ordinary man who, it turned out, had an extraordinary life.” — Michael Barone, Wall Street Journal
“This book is a page-turner! With a propulsive narrative style, grounded in exhaustive research, Smith’s biography of Gerald Ford offers surprising insights into our underestimated 38th president. Rare is the history book that rewrites history. This is one." — Kristie Miller, author of Ellen and Edith: Woodrow Wilson’s First Ladies
"In his groundbreaking biography, Richard Norton Smith elegantly captures Gerald R. Ford, from his Midwestern beginnings, prosaic with twists of tempestuousness, to his accidental though consequential turn as our 38th president, and the graceful end to his 93 years. Rich in revelations and detail, Smith offers a definitive portrait of this extraordinary 'ordinary man.'" — Mark K. Updegrove, president & CEO of the LBJ Foundation and author of Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency
“Devoting the bulk of the book to Ford’s presidency, Smith meticulously details key moments, including the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to secure Nixon’s resignation, negotiations over the 1975 Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union (“Widely denounced at the time... [but] now regarded as an important milestone on the road to European liberation,” Smith contends), and the hard-fought battle to secure the 1976 Republican presidential nomination over Ronald Reagan. . . . This is a solid and revealing biography of an underestimated president.” — Publishers Weekly
“Richard Norton Smith’s extraordinary biography of Gerald Ford, An Ordinary Man, pulls together multiple perspectives to give essential insights into Ford’s thinking and leadership.” — Leadership Now
The Wall Street Journal on On His Own Terms
[A] splendid biography…a clear-eyed, exhaustively researched account of a significant and fascinating American life.”
Kirkus Reviews
2023-02-24
A comprehensive, evenhanded biography of a president who “guided the nation through its worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War.”
Handed the helm of the floundering national ship at the climax of the Watergate crisis, Gerald Ford (1913-2006) managed to quiet the storm due to his congressional navigation skills and personal rectitude. Known as a loyal Nixon supporter and chosen as the replacement vice president when Spiro Agnew was forced to resign, Ford gradually restored public trust in the presidency despite the shocking and, for many citizens, unforgivable pardon he issued to his predecessor just a month into his term. Smith, who has served as the director of five presidential libraries and has authored bios of Thomas Dewey, Herbert Hoover, and Nelson Rockefeller, provides a useful new appraisal of Ford’s life, underscoring how his complicated early family history (largely unknown during his political career) helped shape him into the guileless character he became. Early on, his mother divorced his abusive biological father, and she was enmeshed in legal battles during Ford’s adolescence. When she married Gerald Ford Sr., the young man took his name. Ford Jr. eventually married strong-minded divorcée Betty, who became a force in her own right on such issues as women’s rights, addiction, and breast cancer. In 1948, Ford ran for Congress largely because he was unable to become a probate judge, “his original ambition.” A member of the Warren Commission and House minority leader, he was ready to retire when he was chosen to be vice president. Concluding this massive, somewhat overlong portrait, Smith touts Ford’s signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, taming of double-digit inflation, policy of economic deregulation, support of Black majority rule in Rhodesia, and “tough love” rescue of an ailing New York City.
A fresh appreciation of an underrated, underappreciated president who arrived in the nick of time.
