The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

Book excerpt: Amity Shlaes reclaimed a misunderstood president with her bestselling biography Coolidge. Now she presents an expanded and annotated edition of that president’s masterful memoir. The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge is as unjustly neglected as Calvin Coolidge himself. The man caricatured as “Silent Cal” was a gifted writer. The New York Times called him “the most literary man who has occupied the White House since 1865.” One biographer wrote that Coolidge’s autobiography “displays a literary grace that is lacking in most such books by former presidents.” The Coolidge who emerges in these pages is a model of character, principle, and humility—rare qualities in Washington. The autobiography offers great insight into the man and his philosophy. Calvin Coolidge’s leadership provides urgent lessons for our age of exploding debt and government power. Shlaes and coeditor Matthew Denhart, president of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, underscore those lessons in an enlightening introduction and annotations to Coolidge’s text. This handsome new edition is the first to appear in nearly fifteen years. It includes several of Coolidge’s greatest speeches, more than a dozen photographs, a timeline of Coolidge’s life, and other new material. This autobiography combats the myths about one of our most misunderstood presidents. It also shows us how much we still have to learn from Calvin Coolidge.