http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=booksSenator Albert Gore, Sr.: Tennessee Maverick (Southern Biography Series)
by Kyle Longley, Al, Jr. Gore
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
"Non-cussin’, non-smokin,’ non-drinkin’" Albert Gore, Sr., the father of former vice president Al Gore, Jr., earned a reputation as a lawmaker who marched to the beat of a different drummer during his 32 years on Capitol Hill. This well-researched book is the first major work to take stock of the southern Democrat’s life and times. Arizona State University historian Longley (In the Eagle’s Shadow: The United States and Latin America) zeroes in on Gore’s distinctive brand of political pragmatism, which was particularly evident when he addressed contentious subjects like race. The Tennessean switched gears as necessary, supporting Japanese internment during World War II and, under election year pressure, voting against the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act (a decision he later regretted). Yet, he also penned Air Force academy recommendations for African Americans and supported the weaker 1957 civil rights measures, which earned him the enmity of his more conservative constituents. In the end, after challenging presidents from FDR to JFK, Gore’s battles with Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon over his opposition to Vietnam cost the iconoclast his Senate seat in 1970. The relationship between Gore and his son looms large over the book’s final chapters. Longley reveals that "many would characterize" the elder Gore’s treatment of his only son as "sadistic" because he constantly pushed Al Jr. hard and insisted he perform manual farm labor to keep from becoming "spoiled and conceited." Fascinating family information like this is sprinkled throughout, but the book is more a survey of a political career than a biography. Although Longley’s prose can be dry, he offers a solid, well-defined profile of a man who, according to his son, "personified the American dream." 12 halftones.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description:
Best remembered as the father of Vice President Al Gore, Albert Gore, Sr., worked tirelessly in politics himself, a Democratic congressman and senator from 1939 to 1971 and a representative of southern liberalism and American reformism. In the first comprehensive biography of Gore, Kyle Longley has produced an incisive portrait of a significant American political leader and an arresting narrative of the shaping of a southern and American political tradition. His research includes archival sources from across the country as well as interviews with Gore’s colleagues, friends, and family.
Longley describes how the native of Possum Hollow, Tennessee, became known during his political career as a maverick, a man who, according to one journalist, would "rock almost anybody’s boat." For his actions, Gore often paid a heavy price, personally and professionally. Overshadowed by others in Congress such as Lyndon Johnson, J. William Fulbright, Richard Russell, and Barry Goldwater, Gore nonetheless played a major role on the important issues of taxes, the Interstate Highway system, civil rights, nuclear power and arms control, and the Vietnam War.
Longley situates Gore as part of a generation of politicians who matured on the messages of William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt. In the South, Gore belonged to a staunch group of liberals who battled traditional conservative forces, often within their own party. He and others such as Estes Kefauver, Frank Porter Graham, and Ralph Yarborough set the stage for subsequent generations, including that of Jimmy Carter and Jim Sasser, and later Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jr., and John Edwards. From his career shines one encapsulating moment in 1952: squared off on the floor of the Senate against Strom Thurmond, who wanted Gore to sign the "Southern Manifesto" declaring southern resistance to desegregation, Gore responded simply, classically, "Hell no."