Description: Republican Character examines the role of temperament, personality, character, and leadership ability in political success. Donald T. Critchlow compares the strengths and weaknesses of four key Republicans--Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan--as well as the uneasy alliances that arose between them.
Review Quotes: "Donald Critchlow has written a book called Republican Character at a time when the phrase sounds almost loaded. A year into Donald Trump's presidency, the topic of his perceived character defects and what voters ought to make of them has been endlessly canvassed. Happily, Critchlow, a professor at Arizona State University, is a political historian, not a pundit, and his slim volume is not an entry in that debate (though it is far from irrelevant to it). It is a compact and illuminating history of four Republicans who pursued the presidency in the latter half of the 20th century: Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan . . . [Critchlow] wants to show, through the intertwined biographies of these four men, that character is critically important to political success (or failure)."-- "The American Prospect"