“Book Review: Hoover [Review of Whyte’s Hoover: An Extraordinary Life In Extraordinary Times]”, 2020-03-17 ():
Extensive paraphrase summary of Herbert Hoover: while remembered solely as one of the worse American presidents because of the Great Depression, Hoover had a remarkable life: he rose from grinding poverty to the first student at Stanford University (later a trustee) to becoming a mining magnate after revamping Australia & China (the latter in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion) and penning a definitive mining textbook. Along the way, he invented a popular CrossFit medicine ball exercise, relieved the worst flood disaster in American history, organized the evacuation of Americans trapped by the outbreak of WWI and then reorganized American agriculture for WWI…
Hoover, in the service of the highest goods, ruthlessly crushes all opposition, shamelessly exploits PR tactics to the maximum extent, lies and deceives his negotiating partners, and bankrupts himself—and he succeeds, becoming arguably one of the greatest philanthropists in history for organizing repeated famine reliefs in Europe and Communist Russia after.
A shockingly competent technocrat and now regarded as one of the greatest men in the world, he succeeds Coolidge and attempts to forestall the looming Great Depression, and then takes unprecedented action to stop it; while he ultimately fails, he initially seemed like he was succeeding, and it may be bad luck plus the deliberate sabotage of his efforts by President-elect Franklin Roosevelt which prolonged the Great Depression. Embittered, he spends the rest of his life inveighing against FDR and the New Deal, founding modern conservatism.
Alexander ponders why Hoover, who was so unarguably competent at everything he turned his hand to, achieving impossible feats of management and logistics, appears to have failed when he became President at stopping the Great Depression or being re-elected, and what we can learn about philanthropy from him.