Out of all the recent political memoirs, Cheney's book stands very tall. The strength of the work is it's all inclusive nature of covering every aspect of his involvement in government, without digressing too much into reasoning, and pondering, like certain other memoirs do (eg Decision Points). Rather, Cheney keeps solidly to the point,. 10 Political Memoirs You MUST Read Once you’ve completed George W. Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” you can move on to the next emotional roller coaster, “Going Rogue” and “Spoken From The Heart.” Can’t wait till the day comes for Christine O’Donnell’s. Always wanted to know more about witches. This anthology has an interesting concept—the political memoir as a genre—and may be the only book of its type. (It's impossible to search for comparable books since 'political' and 'memoir' produce zillions of hits; if you know of a similar work, please tell me about it.) The editor makes a strong case that this complex 'polygenre'—a mix.
This is a list of British political memoirs:
- As It Happened by Clement Attlee (1954)
- Many Shades of Black: Inside Britain's Far-Right by John Bean (1999)
- Dare to be a Daniel: Then and Now by Tony Benn (2004)
- Unspeakable by John Bercow (2020)
- A Journey by Tony Blair (2010)
- The Autobiography of Sir John Bramston by John Bramston the Younger (1845)
- My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown (2010)
- Memoirs by Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury (1890)
- Memory Hold-the-Door by John Buchan (1940)
- Time and Chance by James Callaghan (1987)
- The Blair Years by Alastair Campbell (2007)
- For the Record by David Cameron (2019)
- Fighting All The Way by Barbara Castle (1993)
- Alan Clark Diaries by Alan Clark (1993–2002)
- Kind of Blue by Kenneth Clarke (2016)
- Politics: Between the Extremes by Nick Clegg (2016)
- I'm Not the Only One by George Galloway (2003)
- The Course of My Life by Edward Heath (1998)
- The Door Wherein I Went by Quintin Hogg (1975)
- A Sparrow's Flight: Memoirs by Quintin Hogg (1990)
- You Can't Say That by Ken Livingstone (2011)
- War Memoirs of David Lloyd George by David Lloyd George (1933–1937)
- Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin by Damian McBride (2013)
- John Major: The Autobiography by John Major (1999)
- The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour by Peter Mandelson (2010)
- Chance Witness: An Outsider's Life in Politics by Matthew Parris (2002)
- Assignment to Catastrophe by Edward Spears (1954–1955)
- Against Goliath: David Steel's Story by David Steel (1989)
- The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher (1993)
- The Path to Power by Margaret Thatcher (1995)
- In My Own Time by Jeremy Thorpe (1999)
- Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams by Shirley Williams (2009)
- Memoirs: The Making of a Prime Minister 1916–1964 by Harold Wilson (1986)
Memoirs by politicians and their family members are in a strange genre that must balance compelling storytelling with personal aims. Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough is better written than most, Megan Garber argues. (Mary has a master’s degree in comparative literature.) But the book’s resonance is strongest when it sees the president’s niece, a clinical psychologist, take on the work of so many other Americans: that of struggling to understand the president’s psyche.
Mary’s memoir breaks from the Trump family’s tradition of self-promotional texts, such as Donald Trump’s self-aggrandizingThe Art of the Deal. His daughter’s Women Who Work “is premised on the notion that women would be better off” if women were more like Ivanka Trump, Megan writes. His ex-wife Ivana codifies this narcissism into a family philosophy of being better than everyone else in her book Raising Trump.
Such ego is common in campaign books (a subgenre of political memoirs), such as Kamala Harris’s The Truths We Hold, written before her unsuccessful presidential run. Despite its self-promotion, the book, Hannah Giorgis writes, failed to deliver a cohesive message or reconcile her work as a prosecutor with her efforts to establish a progressive image.
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Memoirs from those who have left political life, however, can offer more honesty. Hillary Clinton’s What Happened analyzes the failings in press coverage of her presidential run, and also takes responsibility for her role in Trump’s victory. Barney Frank’s memoir gets even more personal, chronicling the challenges he faced as the first member of Congress to come out as gay. Michelle Obama’s surprisingly intimate Becoming shines brightest when it reveals the fear and frustration behind the former first lady’s composure.
Every Friday in the Books Briefing, we thread together Atlantic stories on books that share similar ideas.
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What We’re Reading
How Americans became part of the Trump family
“Too Much and Never Enough, by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, is both a memoir and a manifesto … Mary Trump, chastened by her own, earlier silence about her uncle’s unfitness for office, is sounding a belated alarm. People have suffered, she writes, because her uncle is incapable of understanding other people’s suffering. People have died because her uncle cares more about the illusion of competence than its realization.”
In My Time: A Personal & Political Memoir
📚 Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Mary Trump
The biggest winners: what Ivana reveals about Trump family values
“By virtue of its core characters—a man who becomes the American president, a daughter who becomes his adviser, a son-in-law who becomes responsible for criminal-justice reform and opioid-crisis management and bringing peace to the Middle East—Raising Trump is less a straightforward memoir than it is a teasing exploration of the workings of the presidential family. Here are the oft-discussed ‘Trump family values,’ as explained by the woman who helped create them.”
📚 Raising Trump, by Ivana Trump
Kamala Harris’s political memoir is an uneasy fit for the digital era
“Unlike Harris’s many viral #resistance moments and meticulous snapshots of relatability, the memoir itself is a meandering work that lacks verve. More significantly, given far more than 280 characters to deliver a cohesive message, Harris doesn’t meaningfully reconcile her punitive track record as a California prosecutor with her more recent activist-adjacent positioning as a national Democratic darling.”
📚 The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, by Kamala Harris
Presidential Memoirs List
Why Hillary Clinton’s book is actually worth reading
“Most books by politicians are bad … But What Happened is not a standard work of this genre. It’s interesting, it’s worth reading, and it sets out questions that the press, in particular, has not done enough to face.”
📚 What Happened, by Hillary Clinton
The cross-generational politics of Barney Frank
“Since, in his usual way, Barney Frank gets right to the point in his new memoir, I will too: the most engaging—and indeed occasionally heartrending (not an adjective I ever thought I’d use in writing about Frank)—parts of this book are those in which he discusses his long struggles with his sexuality and relationships.”
📚 Frank: A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage, by Barney Frank
The uncommon, requisite resolve of Michelle Obama
“Becoming is satisfying for the quiet moments in which Mrs. Obama, the woman who supported a black man named Barack all the way to the presidency, gets to let down her hair and breathe as Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, girl of the South Side.”
What Is A Political Memoir
📚 Becoming, by Michelle Obama
About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Kate Cray. The book she’s reading next is On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong.
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