The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary, 1918-1928

"Herbert Hoover is one of the few figures in American history who truly requires a multivolume biography, and in the installment at hand, Clements helps us understand why. This is a richly informative and illuminating study of an oft-neglected (and too often caricatured) leader as he neared the pinnacle of a remarkable career. Professor Clements has written a discerning and neccssary book."---GEORGE H. NASH, author of the first three volumes of the Life of Herbert Hoover

"Clements' compendious, deeply researched, and highly sophisticated study of Herbert Hoover during the Paris Peace Conference and the Commerce years will serve as an important building block for a new understanding of the 1920s."---STEPHEN A. SCHUKER, William W. Corcoran Professor of History, University of Virginia

"In this thoughtfully crafted volume, Clements details and analyzes both a crucial decade in Hoover's life and the ongoing whirlwinds of political and associatioal activity generated by his initiatives. Solidly grounded in primary evidence, it stands as the best account yet of the era's `great administrator' and the complex set of successes and frustrations that eventually helped to make him president."---Ellis W. Hawley, University of Iowa

This latest volume in the definitive six-volume biography of Herbert Hoover tracks Hoover's life and career from 1918 to 1928---a period defined largely by his role as United States Secretary of Commerce and leading directly of Commerce and leading directly to his landslide election as the thirty-first President of the United States. In rich detail, Clements chronicles Hoover's ascent through the political ranks to become one of the most high-profile men in government, earning himself the informal distinction "the Secretary of Commerce and undersecretary of everything else." Clements traces Hoover's evolution from an engineering progressive to a relief and war manager and shows how he developed a public philosophy for dealing with a wide array of challenges, from infrastructure and the environment to disaster relief and children's rights. The book also considers Hoover alongside the large intellectual trends, social developments, and political events of the period, interweaving his family life, business affairs, and the other aspects of his life with the larger historical context.

Kendrick A. Clements is a Distinguished Professor, Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of numerous books, including Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman, The Presidecy of Woodrow Wilson, and Hoover, Conservation, and Consumerism: Engineering the Good Life.