| Title | : | The Prince Of Tennessee: The Rise Of Al Gore |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 330 |
| Publication | : | First published August 1, 2000 |
Gore's path to power, at first glance, seems straight and narrow. While Bill Clinton's rise is a story of obstacles overcome, Gore's ascendance seems the opposite: the son of political aristocracy reared by loving and demanding parents who groomed him as a princeling to reach the top. But his life was shaped by as much duality as Clinton's. As a child Gore was shuffled back and forth from political Washington to rural Tennessee, his ancestral homeland. The contrast reflects a larger tension between what others expected of Gore and what he wanted to do. Here was the quintessential good son whom his classmates teased as the wooden Apollo. He would occasionally try to rebel but inevitably be yanked back by the burden of expectations and his own insecurity.
His first ambition was to be a novelist, but his friends at Harvard saw him as a royal figure for whom a political career was unavoidable. He opposed the war in Vietnam, yet enlisted in the army anyway, out of an obligation to shield his father, the antiwar senator. When he eventually turned to politics Gore brought with him competing impulses: the cautious political moderate with an occasional tendency toward uncommon boldness, the awkward public figure who in private can be a raucous storyteller, the loyal son and vice president who wants to be considered on his own terms, the reluctant politician who burns with a desire to fulfill his parents' dream and become president.
The Prince Of Tennessee: The Rise Of Al Gore Reviews
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This is one of 4 or 5 books on Al Gore that were written right before the 2000 election. It is primarily about his life before becoming the Vice President; there is only minimal information here about his interactions with Bill Clinton. It is a compelling story of a man far more complicated than is typically shown through the media, and the book is all the more interesting when read in 2009, when we know more fully what Al Gore's future has in store for him. There is a paragraph or two about this little slideshow on global warming he used to give at Washington dinner parties.
It is hard to evaluate how "non-partisan" the book is when the reader is fully partisan, but I did feel the book was honest and unflinching in its portrayal and assessment of Gore and his character. Gore's insecurities and inner conflicts are given thorough assessment. It is easy to read it now and see that politics were never Gore's calling, though the book clearly makes the argument that they were. -
Al Gore is why I converted from my Republican upbringing to becoming an active Democrat.
His nomination acceptance speech in 2000 was inspiring and awakened me. I read this book right after.
The book is a decent accounting of Gore's life, but lacked in parts. I would be interested in reading another biography of Gore, since I'm sure there are more that have been written (or are being written now) in the momentous eight years since I read this. -
An informative book, though not always very interesting. Gore seems to have spent his life trying to impress his family and trying to live up to their expectations. He seems in general to be a moral person with some defects: insecure, exagerates, not always able to see what is important.
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Not the best in my book.
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By the end of this book I just felt sorry for him, it seems his life was not his own.
