From the author of the acclaimed One Minute to Midnight- a sharply focused, riveting account--told from inside the White House--of the crucial days, hours, and moments when the Watergate conspiracy consumed, and ultimately toppled, a president.
In January 1973, Richard Nixon had just been inaugurated after winning re-election in a historic landslide. But by April 1973, his presidency had fallen apart as the Watergate scandal metastasized into what White House counsel John Dean called "a full-blown cancer." King Richard is the intimate, utterly absorbing narrative of the tension-packed hundred days when the Watergate burglars and their handlers in the administration turned on one another, revealing their direct connection ties to the White House.
Drawing on thousands of hours of newly-released taped recordings, Michael Dobbs takes us into the very heart of the conspiracy, recreating these dramatic events in unprecedentedly vivid detail. He captures the growing paranoia of the principal players and their desperate attempts to deflect blame as the noose tightened around them and the daily pressures became increasingly unbearable. At the center of this spellbinding drama is Nixon himself, a man whose strengths, particularly his determination to win at all costs, were also his fatal flaws. Structured like a classical tragedy with a uniquely American twist, this is an epic and deeply human story of ambition, power, and betrayal.
From the author of the acclaimed One Minute to Midnight- a sharply focused, riveting account--told from inside the White House--of the crucial days, hours, and moments when the Watergate conspiracy consumed, and ultimately toppled, a president.
In January 1973, Richard Nixon had just been inaugurated after winning re-election in a historic landslide. But by April 1973, his presidency had fallen apart as the Watergate scandal metastasized into what White House counsel John Dean called "a full-blown cancer." King Richard is the intimate, utterly absorbing narrative of the tension-packed hundred days when the Watergate burglars and their handlers in the administration turned on one another, revealing their direct connection ties to the White House.
Drawing on thousands of hours of newly-released taped recordings, Michael Dobbs takes us into the very heart of the conspiracy, recreating these dramatic events in unprecedentedly vivid detail. He captures the growing paranoia of the principal players and their desperate attempts to deflect blame as the noose tightened around them and the daily pressures became increasingly unbearable. At the center of this spellbinding drama is Nixon himself, a man whose strengths, particularly his determination to win at all costs, were also his fatal flaws. Structured like a classical tragedy with a uniquely American twist, this is an epic and deeply human story of ambition, power, and betrayal.
MICHAEL DOBBS was born and educated in Britain, but he is now a U.S. citizen. He was a long-time reporter for The Washington Post, covering the collapse of communism as a foreign correspondent, and he has taught at Princeton, Georgetown, and the University of Michigan. He is the author of a Cold War trilogy that includes Down with Big Brother, One Minute to Midnight, and Six Months in 1945; he lives outside Washington, D.C.
ONE OF USA TODAY'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A NEW YORK TIMES
CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR
"Rich and kaleidoscopic… Dobbs has carved out something intimate
and extraordinary, skillfully chiseling out the details to bring
the story to lurid life."
—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"This fast-paced opus would be a rollicking fun read, a beach book
even, if it weren’t so doggone real – and if it wasn’t so
reminiscent of recent machinations in our nation’s capital. But fun
or not, this is an important book at this moment in our tortured
political history... Crucial. ★★★★ out of four."
—David Holahan, USA Today
"Richard Nixon, who’s own naughty mouth, blind spots and pathetic
unraveling gets a renewed intimacy in Michael Dobbs’ surprisingly
riveting King Richard: Nixon and Watergate — An American Tragedy.
Like a great curse word, you have heard it endlessly, but told
through a fresh voice, it’s as fun as it is lurid.”
—Christopher Borelli, Chicago Tribune
"Dobbs… has a keen sense of drama. And, by focusing on the 100 days
after Nixon’s triumphant second inauguration, he provides a clever
lens for viewing most all of the president’s disastrous decisions,
with an intimacy — due to Dobbs’s subtle choice of extracts from
the tapes — that is stunning… The story Dobbs tells is, by turns,
hilarious, pathetic and infuriating.”
—Joe Klein, Washington Post
"Vivid... King Richard [has] a better shot than most histories
have at reaching younger readers. At the same time, it gives a
(much) older generation of Watergate junkies a way to rediscover
the dark intrigues of Nixon and his entourage — with notes of
relief that we all survived, and perhaps a touch of nostalgia as
well.... Dobbs achieves something of a cinematic
effect... Whether you lived through the Watergate years, or
have studied them since, Dobbs' book hearkens back to an era when
even a president elected in a landslide could be held to account by
the system itself."
—Ron Elving, NPR
"Smart and highly readable... Dobbs has a talent for
you-are-there description... Vivid and fun."
—David Greenberg, New York Times Book Review
"A rollicking narrative history of the first 100 days of
Nixon’s second term—the break-in, the cover-up, the
investigation—that manages to be searing, humane, and
addictive."
—Alessandra Stanley, Air Mail
"This beautifully written and stunningly detailed portrait of one
hundred essential days at the beginning of Nixon’s second term
brings the Watergate scandal, its colourful cast of characters and
Nixon himself to life in a way we’ve never before seen... King
Richard’s vivid characterisations, novelistic detail and universal
human themes make this a work of our time and for all time."
—Greg Garrett, The Spectator
"Dobbs has used them to produce the story of a White House meltdown
that Watergate aficionados will find irresistible.”
—Jim Dey, The News-Gazette
"With cohesion of purpose, command of subject, wealth of
specificity and precision of prose, Dobbs fashions an absorbing
narrative. A capital work of history rendered with Dobbs’ ability
to convey immediacy, King Richard adds welcome clarity
and nuance to the Watergate story.”
—The Free Lance-Star
"Fresh... Ingenious... It is Dobbs’s ability to use the
techniques of fiction — getting inside the characters’ heads and
reconstructing their interactions scene by scene — that gives this
book its page-turning power."
—Charlotte Allen, Washington Examiner
"The tale of the two-bit break-in at Washington’s Watergate
building and its monumental consequences is complex and
labyrinthine, but Dobbs manages to tell it with sparkling
clarity... One of the many virtues of this book is that, while
acknowledging his often grotesque, even comical shortcomings, it
also conveys quite a bit of sympathy for the unlovable, joyless,
workaholic Nixon, and the hole into which he dug himself...
[Dobb's] tells the story amazingly well."
—Craig Brown, Daily Mail (UK)
"Dobbs masterfully crams in the odds and sods of Nixon’s
curious personality... Dobbs’s book combines
clarity, amusement and tragedy, opening up the Watergate
story, perhaps, to a younger
generation of readers who might imagine that Trump is as bad
as it gets."
—Tim Stanley, Literary Review (UK)
"Vivid.. Parts of it read like a script from The West Wing...
If All the President’s Men was the first rough draft of Watergate
history, this is the polished re-write. Older readers will enjoy
its deft mix of personality, history and politics – and younger
ones can spare themselves from ploughing through the dustier
volumes on the Watergate shelf."
—Colin Freeman, Daily Telegraph (UK)
"Riveting... The book is excellent at painting the scene... Good,
brisk, and readable."
—Daniel Finkelstein, The Times (UK)
"The potent research and narrative skills of Michael Dobbs reach
new heights in King Richard, his Shakespearean study of the
endlessly compelling self-inflicted fall of Richard Nixon. Here
again, as he did in his study of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
Dobbs applies his signature technique of revealing character
through the dramatic compression of time. It makes for illuminating
and addictively readable history."
—David Maraniss, author of Barack Obama: The Story
"Michael Dobbs is a master at narrative history. By focusing on the
most critical 100 days of Watergate, and by sticking closely to the
written and spoken record, Dobbs is able to bring to life the
tragedy of Richard Nixon in a way no one else has. A truly gripping
read and a moving portrait."
—Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon
"A balanced but frank account of a critical period in Richard
Nixon’s downfall and a valuable addition to the literature of this
dramatic era in American political history... Engrossing."
—BookPage
"The strength of the work stems from Dobbs’s bringing lesser-known
events into clear focus... Spanning biography and history,
this is a gripping narrative and a fine account of events in the
presidency. Recommended for readers unfamiliar with Watergate or in
need of a refresher."
—Library Journal
"The unraveling of Richard Nixon’s presidency plays out in intimate
detail in this vivid recreation of a key period in the Watergate
scandal.... Dobbs skillfully quotes from the tapes to paint
colorful, nuanced portraits of White House yes-men, a manipulative
Henry Kissinger, and a Nixon who is vulnerable, melancholy,
paranoid and vengeful...The result is an indelible study of a
political antihero."
—Publishers Weekly, starred
"This is a compelling, moment-by-moment narrative, psychological as
much as political, offering a sense of intimacy with the
beleaguered Nixon without mawkishness."
—Booklist, starred
"Spellbinding... Masterful... The author delivers an intimate,
engrossing picture of Nixon as a visionary man “obsessed with
privacy and solitude,” an affectionate husband and father, and a
gut-fighting outsider mystified by power and all its trappings,
styling himself as a kind of blend of Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin
Disraeli, and Charles de Gaulle. A riveting portrait of ambition,
hubris, betrayal, and the downfall of an American president"
—Kirkus, starred
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