Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics |
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List Price: $25.95
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Manufacturer: Random House
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 328.73092
EAN: 9781400065363
ISBN: 1400065364
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2007-07-31
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: 2007-07-31
Studio: Random House
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Editorial Reviews:
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“Nearly forty years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe that my chosen profession is a noble calling. That’s why I wanted to be a part of it.”
–Joe Biden
As a United States senator from Delaware since 1973, Joe Biden has been an intimate witness to the major events of the past four decades and a relentless actor in trying to shape recent American history. He has seen up close the tragic mistake of the Vietnam War, the Watergate and Iran-contra scandals, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a presidential impeachment, a presidential resignation, and a presidential election decided by the Supreme Court. He’s observed Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and two Bushes wrestling with the presidency; he’s traveled to war zones in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and seen firsthand the devastation of genocide. He played a vital role by standing up to Ronald Reagan’s effort to seat Judge Robert Bork on the Supreme Court, fighting for legislation that protects women against domestic violence, and galvanizing America’s response (and the world’s) to Slobodan Milosevic’s genocidal march in the Balkans. In Promises to Keep, Biden reveals what these experiences taught him about himself, his colleagues, and the institutions of government.
With his customary candor, Biden movingly recounts growing up in a staunchly Catholic multigenerational household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware; overcoming a demoralizing stutter; marriage, fatherhood, and the tragic death of his wife Neilia and infant daughter Naomi; remarriage and re-forming a family with his second wife, Jill; success and failure in the Senate and on the campaign trail; two life-threatening aneurysms; his relations with fellow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle; and his leadership of powerful Senate committees.
Through these and other recollections, Biden shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life–the obligation to work to make people’s lives better, to honor family and faith, to get up and do the right thing no matter how hard you’ve been knocked down, to be honest and straightforward, and, above all, to keep your promises–are the foundations on which he has based his life’s work as husband, father, and public servant.
Promises to Keep is the story of a man who faced down personal challenges and tragedy to become one of our most effective leaders. It is also an intimate series of reflections from a public servant who refuses to be cynical about political leadership, and a testament to the promise of the United States.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: What class/candor/strength our VP-elect has,
Comment: Read it in one night. Joe is a fascinating study on American politics and deserves any and all credit that comes his way. His intelligence, ability to become a Democratic Senator in a solidly red country at the age of 29, his strength to overcome awful tragedy of losing his wife Neilia and newborn, his health problems, to his failed Presidental bid in the 80's, to his triumph in the Senate.
Joe, if you read this, I'm looking forward to Promises to Keep part II: Promises Kept as the Vice President.
Customer Rating:
Summary: . I Could Not Put This Down
Comment: Once I started reading this book I could not put it down. It is the story of someone from an average family who goes on to become chairman of the senate foreign relations committee. Joe tells the story of his childhood, getting through college and meeting his wives and how his first wife and daughter died in an auto accident. How after this great tragedy he did not want to go on. It is a very compelling human story of a very human being who goes on to become on of the greats of our time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL reading...you feel like Joe is right in the room with you having a conversation
Comment: Great book, well written in typical "Joe Biden" fashion...which is FROM THE HEART. A "must read" if you want to really know Joe Biden's life and value system. He is an amazing, ethical and moral individual. One I will be PROUD to have as a VP and after 8 years I am praying he will be feeling great and will run for President himself. He will make a GREAT VP and an even BETTER President.
I do not believe his being in his 70s in 8 years will have any effect on his intellect. Age is an asset (assuming one has intellect).
Get the book...it was absolutely beautiful. Some tearful (REALLY tearful) moments of reading...but also some fun and laughable moments. Of course, there are LOADS of facts and most I lived through, but it was nice to read about the history again.
You will be happy when you read this great, thoughtful book. You will know Joe Biden...and you will ADMIRE this man. Great citizen...great man.
Diane Offutt
Woodstock, GA. 30189
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good look at the future Vice President
Comment: Most politicians focus on their laundry list of policies and some sappy stories about their families or campaigns. Biden fills his book with his experiences in the Senate. Where most other books skim over the details of legislating, he actually does a pretty good job relating the type of work and meetings he engages in while doing his Senate duties. In particular, his focus on the Violence Against Women Act and Bosnia provide good examples of what he had to do to achieve his goals. This makes the book particularly useful, since it might indicate his priorities as vice president and how he would act once in the Naval Observatory.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Worth the fighting for
Comment: I got some interesting reactions when I told people I was reading Joe Biden's autobiography. One fellow history buff, who's on the same page as me politically, commented that it must have been "dull".
Surprisingly, "Promises to Keep", despite the achingly generic title, is readable, and not in a large-print, wide-margins, only-197-pages-long kind of way. Biden's co-writer, channeling the same style as Mark Salter, who wrote the similarly engrossing John McCain bios Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir and Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him, mixes in enough personal drama and political dogfights to make this book impressively complex.
Many political biographies tend to be poorly-written ghosted affairs, such our current president's A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House. It might therefore sound like faint praise to say that "Promises to Keep" is above average. However, it helps to remember that this book was published last year, when Biden still harbored Presidential (as opposed to vice-presidential) hopes, and clearly he wanted to compete with Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Whether talking about the death of his first wife, the courtship of his second, or his signature political concerns in the Balkans and the Supreme Court, Biden (and his co-author) neither skimps on detail nor dulls the reader's mind with irrelevant facts. "Promises" was meant to be different, and it succeeds.
Auditioning for President and writing very early in the campaign, Biden makes much of his early days in the Senate, when he claims bipartisanship and civility among rivals was the norm. He has lots of anecdotes about former Senators and Presidents -- his encounters with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are surprising in that he seemed to relate better (on a personal level, at least) with the Republican. I couldn't find Barack Obama's name anywhere within.
Interestingly, although Biden won his Party's VP nod and appears to be, along with Obama, comfortably ahead in the polls (as of this writing), he's not been getting a whole lot of press lately. There's nothing outrageous in his memoir and he seems alone among the four principal candidates this November in that he hasn't been subjected to any attack ads. But don't overlook Joe Biden this election season, and give his book a try too.
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