The Prince of Tennessee - by David Maraniss & Ellen Y Nakashima (Paperback)

About the Book

The Al Gore who comes to life in these pages is an intelligent and competent man, struggling with self-doubt and insecurity that explain his bureaucratic obsession with facts and his tendency to exaggerate his accomplishments.

Book Synopsis

An expertly reported and insightful biography of Al Gore from Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss.

After losing one of the closest American elections in years, Al Gore remains a fascinating political figure, a man both revered and reviled. Drawing on documents, letters, and interviews with more than three hundred people, including six lengthy conversations with the vice president, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima look closely at the forces that have shaped Gore's life and career to explore the man behind the contradictory public persona.

Beginning with Gore's earliest years--when this son of a senator was torn between elite Washington and rural Tennessee--one is struck by the image of a young American prince burdened by expectations of his likely political fate. With a new afterword written after the election, The Prince of Tennessee depicts Gore as an intelligent and competent man whose struggles with self-doubt and insecurity made him one of our least understood presidential candidates.

Review Quotes

Ben Macintyre The New York Times Book Review A fine, deep-mine biography...The authors come closer to the core Gore than any other biographies to date.

Curtis Wilkie The Boston Globe Grounded in strong reporting and honest perception. Sparkles with vignettes drawn from hundreds of interviews.

Dante Chinni The Christian Science Monitor A great read. The authors do a masterly job of explaining [the Gore] paradox.

Steve Neal Chicago Sun-Times Balanced, insightful, and highly readable.

About the Author

David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and was a finalist three other times. Among his bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s--Rome 1960; Once in a Great City (winner of the RFK Book Prize); and They Marched into Sunlight (winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and Pulitzer Finalist in History).