The Prince of Tennessee: Al Gore Meets His Fate

by David Maraniss, Ellen Nakashima

The best-selling author of When Pride Still Mattered and First in His Class offers a close-up look at the life and political career of Vice-President Al Gore, detailing the factors and froces that have shaped his life, his beliefs and goals, and the man behind the public figure. 100,000 first printing.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Biography, American History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2000

About the author

David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and the author of four critically acclaimed and bestselling books, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton, They Marched Into Sunlight War and Peace, Vietnam and America October 1967, and Clemente The Passion and Grace of Baseballs Last Hero. He is also the author of The Clinton Enigma and coauthor of The Prince of Tennessee: Al Gore Meets His Fate and "Tell Newt to Shut Up!"

David is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the Pulitzer for national reporting in 1993 for his newspaper coverage of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. He has won several other notable awards for achievements in journalism, including the George Polk Award, the Dirksen Prize for Congressional Reporting, the ASNE Laventhol Prize for Deadline Writing, the Hancock Prize for Financial Writing, the Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Frankfort Book Prize, the Eagleton Book Prize, the Ambassador Book Prize, and Latino Book Prize.
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Reviews

[Shari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of 4 or 5 books on Al Gore that were written right before the 2000 election. It is primarily about his life before becoming the Vice President; there is only minimal information here about his interactions with Bill Clinton. It is a compelling story of a man far more complicated than is typically shown through the media, and the book is all the more interesting when read in 2009, when we know more fully what Al Gore's future has in store for him. There is a paragraph or two about this little slideshow on global warming he used to give at Washington dinner parties.

It is hard to evaluate how "non-partisan" the book is when the reader is fully partisan, but I did feel the book was honest and unflinching in its portrayal and assessment of Gore and his character. Gore's insecurities and inner conflicts are given thorough assessment. It is easy to read it now and see that politics were never Gore's calling, though the book clearly makes the argument that they were.

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al Gore is why I converted from my Republican upbringing to becoming an active Democrat.

His nomination acceptance speech in 2000 was inspiring and awakened me. I read this book right after.

The book is a decent accounting of Gore's life, but lacked in parts. I would be interested in reading another biography of Gore, since I'm sure there are more that have been written (or are being written now) in the momentous eight years since I read this.

[Shawna · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative book, though not always very interesting. Gore seems to have spent his life trying to impress his family and trying to live up to their expectations. He seems in general to be a moral person with some defects: insecure, exagerates, not always able to see what is important.

[Katie (BooksRUs) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not the best in my book.

[Shellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the end of this book I just felt sorry for him, it seems his life was not his own.