#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this brilliant biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • St. Louis Post-Dispatch Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the forty-first president and his family, Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times. From the Oval Office to Camp David, from his study in the private quarters of the White House to Air Force One, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the first Gulf War to the end of Communism, Destiny and Power charts the thoughts, decisions, and emotions of a modern president who may have been the last of his kind. This is the human story of a man who was, like the nation he led, at once noble and flawed. His was one of the great American lives. Born into a loving, privileged, and competitive family, Bush joined the navy on his eighteenth birthday and at age twenty was shot down on a combat mission over the Pacific. He married young, started a family, and resisted pressure to go to Wall Street, striking out for the adventurous world of Texas oil. Over the course of three decades, Bush would rise from the chairmanship of his county Republican Party to serve as congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, head of the Republican National Committee, envoy to China, director of Central Intelligence, vice president under Ronald Reagan, and, finally, president of the United States. In retirement he became the first president since John Adams to see his son win the ultimate prize in American politics. With access not only to the Bush diaries but, through extensive interviews, to the former president himself, Meacham presents Bush’s candid assessments of many of the critical figures of the age, ranging from Richard Nixon to Nancy Reagan; Mao to Mikhail Gorbachev; Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld; Henry Kissinger to Bill Clinton. Here is high politics as it really is but as we rarely see it. From the Pacific to the presidency, Destiny and Power charts the vicissitudes of the life of this quietly compelling American original. Meacham sheds new light on the rise of the right wing in the Republican Party, a shift that signaled the beginning of the end of the center in American politics. Destiny and Power is an affecting portrait of a man who, driven by destiny and by duty, forever sought, ultimately, to put the country first. Praise for Destiny and Power “Should be required reading—if not for every presidential candidate, then for every president-elect.”—The Washington Post “Reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the personalities who shape it.”—The New York Times Book Review “A fascinating biography of the forty-first president.”—The Dallas Morning News

Demonstrating the love of God…one child at a time Without help many children, families, communities, and nations in our world are destined for despair, pain, and destruction. But the most important thing we can give them is not food, medicine, education, or any other material resource. It is hope. Rob Hoskins has shared God’s good news with more than 850 million children and youth through his nonprofit, OneHope. In Hope Delivered he tells the miraculous stories of people, families, and communities whose lives have been transformed. When God’s Word is discovered, engaged, and lived out, especially by children who hold the future in their hands and have a God-given disposition toward hope it changes destinies. All royalties from the sale of this book will go to the ministry of OneHope.

Harm de Blij contends in this book that geography continues to hold us all in an unrelenting grip and that we are all born into natural and cultural environments that shape what we become, individually and collectively.

The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington forever Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers– that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory. One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will– or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision. Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.

Summary of Destiny and Power: by Jon Meacham | Includes Analysis Preview: Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham is a biography of George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, who served from 1988 to 1992. The author argues that as president and as a politician, Bush used prudence and compromise to an extent that would seem out of place in today’s era of highly partisan US politics. George H.W. Bush had a varied career before winning the presidency: he was a Navy pilot, oilman, congressman, ambassador to the UN, envoy to China, head of the Republican Party, and later director of the CIA. In the executive branch, he first served as vice president of the United States under Ronald Reagan for eight years before beginning his own presidency… PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary and analysis of the book and NOT the original book. Inside this Instaread Summary & Analysis of Destiny and Power: • Summary of book • Introduction to the Important People in the book • Analysis of the Themes and Author’s Style

Inside this Instaread Summary & Analysis of Destiny and Power:* Summary of book* Introduction to the Important People in the book* Analysis of the Themes and Author's Style

Although once derided as an insignificant office, the vice presidency in the last forty years has witnessed an increase in stature, prominence, and influence. Emerging from the Shadows focuses on explaining variation in vice presidential influence over time with an assumption that all vice presidents in the modern era have the capacity to exercise influence. This study is the first of its kind to ascertain the true nature of vice-presidential influence and the consequences of changing interpersonal, situational, institutional, and electoral dynamics on that influence using in-depth interviews and archival research. These four dynamics, as Richard M. Yon demonstrates, provide a model by which to understand the fluidity of vice-presidential influence, which in turn enables more precise analysis of the vice presidencies of Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George H. W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and Joe Biden.