Challenges discussion
James K. Polk
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I liked Borneman's biography of Polk. It was written to give the reader enough background on the time without being boring, and it gave appropriate time to covering the presidential period of Polk's life.I read the thesis as being that James Polk set out to do four main things and accomplished all four during his single presidential term. He gave a generally positive view of Polk, but that could be because Polk was a good president. Reading the other major volume by Merry may produce a different perspective.
I cannot recommend Borneman in general, as the excerpts I read of The Admirals were extremely boring, but he did a good job educating me about Polk's life.
Brandon wrote: "I liked Borneman's biography of Polk. It was written to give the reader enough background on the time without being boring, and it gave appropriate time to covering the presidential period of Polk'..."I also enjoyed Walter R. Borneman's book on Polk: Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America. Haven't read anything else by him, but I can recommend this biography.
I went with The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman. It was well written and comprehensive. Polk was kind of an architect of the westward expansion, which was fraught with tragedy amongst the Native Americans and contentious stances on slavery. Oddly, Polk was kind of a boring politician with sort of a status quo approach to slavery and more aloof to the consequences of westward expansion in general. A good historical perspective all the same, but sort of a dry read in many ways. Cheers!
The book I read for Polk was A Country of Vast Designs It’s been a few years since I read it, but it delves more into everything that was happening during his presidency being the Mexican War. I’ll have to check out the other book mentioned here too.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
I read this biography when the Shelfari Presidential Read group was in full swing. At the time, I thought that Robert Merry did a good job of balancing Polk's strengths (tenacity and political perseverance) and his weaknesses (lack of team-building leadership, not desirous for personal confrontation). Of course Polk is probably best known for his initiating the U.S.-Mexican War; a war that Abraham Lincoln detested. As a San Franciscan, I prefer to remember Polk for being the president who admitted California into the union.
Borneman had an odd thesis, defend J. Polk at all costs, to an absurd degree he accomplished this. I don't know what people say about Polk's presidency behind his back but, by God, Borneman wanted you to know that Polk was undeserving of whatever criticism he received. That may have been fine with Andrew Jackson- but hardly anyone knows what Polk did- it's a ridiculous thesis to defend.
Specific example- 54 40 or fight. The idea of getting Oregon territory's boundary (present-day Washington, Oregon, Idaho, etc.) settled between us and the British. He spent about three chapters explaining the history of that term (54 40 or fight) and went to great lengths to prove it wasn't used during Polk's election campaign. Whoopie-do. I had no idea that the phrase even existed until Borneman printed it, therefore, I had no idea that people inaccurately attributed it to Polk's presidency campaign- IT DOESNT MATTER.
Sorry it sounds like I care more than I do. I started Polk got half way through in one day and then he sat on my dresser for two weeks because I was so reluctant to pick it back up. Gritted my teeth and finished the other half in a couple of hours. I can mark him off my list and now I know a little more about the man (and a lot more about how I don't like Borneman's style).