The Life of Herbert Hoover

In this monumental contribution to Hoover scholarship, eminent historian Gary Dean Best chronicles the post-presidential decades of this important historical figure, and the achievements of a distinguished career that extended far beyond Herbert Hoover's presidency.

"Full and impressive . . . Mr. Best offers a gratifying distillation of a complicated and gifted elder statesman." - The Wall Street Journal

'Best as completed the multiauthored, six-volume 'Life of Herbert Hoover' series with this extensive contribution on Hoover's post-presidential years. Recommended.' - CHOICE

"This monumental treatment of Hoover's years after the White House does justice to his role as the most politically active and influential ex-president since Theodore Roosevelt. It also shows how deeply he pointed the course of the Republican party even now, nearly half a century since his death." - John Milton Cooper, Jr., author of Woodrow Wilson: A Biography and The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt

"Gary Dean Best's comprehensive, beautifully documented account of Herbert Hoover's post-presidential years equals the best of presidential biographies and will prove indispensable for all historians of twentieth-century American political history." - Stephen A. Schuker, William W. Corcoran Professor of History, University of Virginia

"Based in large measure upon manuscript sources, Best expertly presents Hoover's post-presidential years from the vantage point of the former president himself. Written in lucid prose, the book is a worthy successor to the thorough work embodied in George Nash's three-volume narrative covering the years 1874-1918." - Justus D. Doenecke, Emeritus Professor of History, New College of Florida

"Few Americans have known greater acclaim or more bitter disdain than Herbert Hoover. He achieved unparalleled success as a mining engineer, global humanitarian, and Secretary of Commerce all before his election as President of the United States. The Great Depression left his reputation in shambles, but he refused to fade away. In a remarkable comeback, Herbert Hoover returned to public service to avert global famine and reorganize the executive branch of government. It is the story of that recovery that Gary Dean Best tells so masterfully in the concluding volume of the Life of Herbert Hoover. It is an epic tale of tragedy and triumph." - Tim Walch, Director Emeritus, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library

Gary Dean Best was a Professor of History at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. He received his PhD from the University of Hawaii in 1973, lectured at Sophia University in Tokyo, 1973-1974 and was a Fulbright Scholar in Japan, 1974-1975. Best held a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in 1982-1983 and was awarded research grants by the Hoover Presidential Library Association and the Hoover Institution of War, Peace and Revolution. In addition to his books on Hoover's post-presidency, Best is the author of The Politics of American Individualism: Herbert Hoover in Transition, 1918-1921 (1975); Pride, Prejudice, and Politics, 1933-1938 (1990); and The Critical Press and the New Deal: The Press Versus Presidential Power, 1933-1938 (1993).