In Search of Bill Clinton
Author: John Gartner
Esteemed psychologist John D. Gartner examines the life of our forty-second president in an effort to answer the question: What makes Bill Clinton tick?
Publishers Weekly
The language of clinical psychology can convey detachment-or, as in this starstruck study of the 42nd president, gushing admiration. Deploying his trademark diagnosis, Johns Hopkins psychologist Gartner (The Hypomanic Edge) pegs Clinton as a hypomanic personality with boundless energy and charisma, but prone to impulsive appetites and lapses in judgment. The author attributes much of Clinton's psyche to genes (many inherited, he argues, from an illegitimate father he tentatively identifies), but he also embraces Freudian notions: Clinton's relationships with women, Gartner contends, follow a pattern established in childhood when he felt torn between his bossy, Hillaryesque grandmother and his lushly erotic, Monica-like mother. Gartner sometimes overreaches-"We can almost see Clinton going through the stages of his relationship with [stepfather] Roger in his approach to Bosnia"-but his analysis of Clinton's political talents, right down to his mesmerizing facial expressions while on receiving lines, yields intriguing insights. The author himself unabashedly surrenders to Clinton's magnetism and "genius" intellect: "[H]e has been walking in the footsteps of moral giants," Gartner rhapsodizes about Clinton during an AIDS-relief junket, comparing him to Jesus as a healer of the sick. Nevertheless, Gartner reminds us why this complex figure still fascinates. 17 pages of b&w photos. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
Gartner (psychiatry, Johns Hopkins Medical Sch.) focused his previous book, The Hypomanic Edge , through a biographical-historical lens, on the mild form of mania that he believes can fuel outsized achievement in business, politics, and other fields. His new book is a single case study in hypomania, as for two years Gartner immersed himself in the life of Bill Clinton, reading the literature, interviewing dozens of friends and associates, and following the former President through Africa on a visit for Clinton's AIDS foundation. Like other biographers, Gartner finds that the dysfunctional family dynamics of Clinton's childhood explain a great deal, although many particulars and certainly the conclusion that Clinton is a moral hero differ from two earlier psychological studies, Paul Fick's The Dysfunctional President and Jerome Levin's The Clinton Syndrome . While some readers may consider reductive such observations as our Bosnia policy being a restaging of Clinton's relationship with his stepfather, all will be interested in details like Gartner's detective work that he believes has identified Clinton's actual biological father, and most will find the book an engaging combination of the clinical and the personal. Recommended for public libraries; optional for academic libraries.-Bob Nardini, Nashville
Kirkus Reviews
A bizarre attempt to uncover what makes the 42nd president tick. Employing a diagnosis he explored in The Hypomanic Edge (2005), Gartner (Psychology/Johns Hopkins Univ.) identifies Bill Clinton as "hypomanic," a personality disorder he defines as characterized by excessive energy, creativity and charisma. The author relentlessly scatters "Look, that was hypomanic!" moments throughout the book as he traces Clinton's life, but readers will soon conclude that these shed little light on what kind of president he was or man he is. Gartner promises that his book will treat its subject as a therapist would a patient. Since he never spent any actual time with Clinton, the "therapy" consists of a ham-handed and superficial accounting of how Clinton acted out childhood dramas during the central moments of his life, including the infamous rendezvous with Monica Lewinsky. The author fails to sustain even this slight approach: Clipping passages from the many accounts of the Clinton presidency, he assembles little more than a compilation. Gartner asserts early on that he is fond of the former president, but that hardly explains this hagiography. The gushing text explains away the former president's missteps as misunderstandings, his political failures as the failure of the citizenry to understand how someone so smart and empathetic really just had their best interests at heart. Gossipy analysis and '90s nostalgia make this silly book something of a guilty pleasure, but the author certainly hasn't provided anything new or groundbreaking. Gartner calls this a first-of-its-kind work of "psycho-journalism." If this is the prototype, let's hope production is halted.
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The Everything American Presidents Book: All You Need to Know about the Leaders Who Shaped U. S. History
Author: Martin Kelly
The Everything American Presidents Book is an all-in-one guide to each of the forty-three men who have served as Chief Executive of the United States. This comprehensive resource provides you with all the fundamentals you need to know about this country's leaders plus fascinating little-known facts such as:
- George Washington never really cut down a cherry tree.
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- Chester Arthur loved clothes and changed several times a day.
- William Howard Taft was America's fattest president—he once got stuck in the White House bathtub.
- Herbert Hoover and his wife often spoke Mandarin Chinese when they didn't want to be overheard.
- A portrait of Ronald Reagan made from 10,000 jellybeans hangs in his Presidential Library.
Written in an entertaining style by two experienced educators, this fun and informative guide is packed with facts and details about the life and times of each president and the major events that shaped his term. The Everything American Presidents Book is the perfect reference book about the fascinating men who shaped U.S history and policy.
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