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Editorial Review Product Description
THE PORTRAIT OF A PRESIDENT UNDER INVESTIGATION Beginning with the story of a simple burglary at Democratic headquarters and then continuing with headline after headline, Bernstein and Woodward kept the tale of conspiracy and the trail of dirty tricks and dark secrets coming -- delivering the stunning revelations and pieces in the Watergate puzzle that brought about Nixon's scandalous downfall. Their explosive reports won a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post and toppled the President. This is their book that changed America. ... Read more Customer Reviews (106) 
Once again,a terrific read
I was 16 years old in 1972 and way into my highschool drama with boyfriends, cheerleading, etc.You would have thought I would have paid more attention to not only Watergate but also Vietnam.I read this book many years ago after it first came out. I am 54 and re-reading it and it is better now than ever.Now I have some perspective, views on politics, life experience, which brings this story into sharper focus for me.I don't remember feeling righteously outraged but just disgusted.This time I am outraged.I am in awe of Bob and Carl, the young bulldog journalists that stopped at nothing to get to the truth. Thank God for people like this. This book is superbly written, excellently paced and I hope that when you are through reading it, you are mad as hell.Americans shouldNEVER forget Watergate and always be questioning the government and those we elect to serve US.
Will the real Darth Vader please stand up ?
Nixon won his re-election with a historical landslide, did anybody learn any lasting lessons from Watergate ? , does history repeat itself ? (Iran-Contra comes to mind). As cheeky as Nixon and his people where, if the Washington post's people weren't as...the cancer might have spread, as it has later on. Too serious, over dramatic ?, this is not a sunday morning cartoon, it's a storyabout the battle for the soul of America. To me it's a miracle the book is as good as it is, nothing is perfect. The book seems to end way too fast, then I remembered that this was history basically written in real time. One other thought, this is a story of two sides of the same coin.
A great book about the abuse of power
This book is investigative reporting at its finest as it details the crime and coverup that brought down the Nixon presidency. Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein doggedly stay on the trail of leads as they methodically piece together the puzzle that became Watergate. The film version of the same title was also a huge success and Washington Post publisher Ben Bradlee's faith in his reporters was richly rewarded. Actor Richard Poe showcases his talents in the audiobook with a nifty retelling of this landmark incident in American history.
Book vs. Movie
I loved the movie, but the book is even better! It was delivered fast and in excellent condition!
A Journalistic Masterpiece
"Watergate" is a word familiar to nearly every American, whether or not each individual understands its significance. Although it undoubtedly holds various and conflicting significations for a wide array of people, the word essentially refers to the 1972 burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and its aftermath. This epochal event, along with the legal and political fallouts that followed it, led to a nationwide crisis whose vast sweep eventually encompassed the public - and, in many cases, legal - downfalls of President Richard Nixon and many of his top aides. The task of unraveling this case and presenting it to the public largely fell to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two Washington Post reporters. All The President's Men is their personal chronicle of the adventure. It charts the course of their investigation from its initially unpromising and deceptive appearance as a routine burglary to its eventual status as one of the most famous and fateful scandals in American history. It details the methods and tactics that the two reporters made use of throughout their investigative journey and offers little or no personal commentary along the way; put another way, the authors essentially stick to the facts of their work, rather than using the book to advance their own political agenda. Thus, despite being personally involved in the events they chronicle, the authors are able to maintain an objective tone throughout the book. As a direct result of this, they draw little or no conclusions about the significance of Watergate; rather, they simply provide an overview of the facts as they saw them arise, thereby leaving readers essentially free to form their own opinions and conclusions. Thus, even though it involves a significant amount of personal history, the book should not be regarded as autobiographical so much as an account of a journalistic investigation that happens to be written by the two men responsible for it. All The President's Men is a worthwhile, readable, and well-written book with the potential to appeal not only to those with a keen interest in its subject, but also to a larger audience.
The book features numerous strong points that serve to render reading it a worthwhile and interesting experience. The first of these is its sheer readability; it is easy to read and remains interesting throughout. These traits derive primarily from the fact that the book, despite being essentially documentary in nature, is structured like a detective novel, rather than a non-fiction book. Thus, Watergate is the mystery to be solved, and Woodward and Bernstein are the detectives. Armed with this setup, the book is fast-paced and exciting in nature; despite the occasional plethora of esoteric details, it never slips into the dry and boring. As a result of this presentation, it also retains a considerable degree of suspense that nearly forces the reader to keep reading. This quality, needless to say, is customarily absent from books of this type - a fact that renders the asset even more valuable than it would otherwise be.
Another factor contributing to the book's inherent readability is its enduring relevancy to American society. Despite the inevitable passage of time, it is nearly as applicable to the lives of young people reading it today for the first time as it was to those who lived through the events it chronicles. This is true because it speaks to a concern fundamental to American democracy - the constant threat of corruption in government. This, of course, is a timeless worry; colonial Americans were concerned about it, just as twenty-first century Americans are today. Indeed, anyone reading it today is likely to be struck by the eerie similarity between the presidentially-endorsed wiretapping described in All The President's Men and the more recent occurrence that is emerging at the present moment. Aside from giving renewed credence to the old cliché that "history repeats itself," this similarity also underscores the enduring power and continuing relevancy of Woodward and Bernstein's book.
In many ways, in fact, young readers pouring over the book today have a more interesting read in store for them than those who perused it upon release. The realization of this surprising truth speaks to the fact that readers today come to the book supplied with information not known to its original audience. For example, the identity of Deep Throat - Woodward's mysterious, cigarette-smoking informant who long ago passed into legend - was revealed only in 2005. From the date of the book's publication throughout the ensuing thirty plus years, the identity of Deep Throat was hotly debated; indeed, the open nature of this question formed one of the most famous aspects of the book. Of course, one could argue that knowing former associate FBI director Mark Felt was Deep Throat demystifies the book and spoils part of its appeal for present-day readers. Conversely, though, one can argue that it adds an extra layer of enjoyment; there is a certain undeniable charm in knowing the book's secret before one begins reading it. Also, the book was written and published before Nixon's impeachment and resignation; indeed, it ends with the following retroactively ironic quote from the president:"I have no intention of walking away from the job that the American people elected me to do for the people of the United States." The fact that readers today are already armed with this information gives them a perspective on the book that its original readers simply could not have had; this may well make for a more interesting read. In summary, then, factors ranging from the book's style of presentation to the new perspectives it offers current readers serve to insure that it remains anything but outdated; thus, its essential readability is one of its main strengths.
The second strength making the book a worthwhile read is the fact that, even though it is very readable and even entertaining, it also contains a wealth of valuable information. For example, it would serve as a good primer for those who know little about Watergate; it gives a solid general overview of the scandal from the uncertain and apparently inconsequential beginning of the burglary all the way to its later stages. For anyone looking to learn more about the subject, it is a good place to start; indeed, as it is both interesting and informative, it will likely inspire readers to learn and read more about the subject elsewhere.
Aside from its usefulness as an educational tool for those looking to learn more about Watergate, the book also contains a vast store of information on another subject - the ins and outs of investigative journalism. Readers who want to know how reporters do what they do will find much to interest them in All The President's Men. Woodward and Bernstein often go into great detail about their methods, thereby providing a fascinating glimpse into the world of journalism in the process. Fortunately for the reader, though, they never get bogged down in this detail, extensive though it sometimes is; the book remains fresh and interesting throughout. As a direct consequence of this extreme amount of detail, the reader is left with an overwhelming impression of the authors' knowledge; Woodward and Bernstein clearly know what they are talking about, as every reader will learn. Their descriptions of the journalistic process come off as decidedly authoritative, as do their double- and triple-checked reports themselves. It is true that the book contains few footnotes and no bibliography, but these are arguably unnecessary; the story is Bernstein's and Woodward's, based on their own research. As this research consisted almost entirely of interviews, the book could have no bibliography in the normal sense. Still, despite these lacks, the highly informative overall nature of the book makes up one of its main strengths and contributes to its overall worthiness.
All The President's Men also possesses a third strength that adds to its overall worth - its broad appeal. As hinted at earlier, Woodward and Bernstein's book has the potential to appeal to a much broader audience than most other books dealing with a specific political topic. For example, like most other books of its ilk, it appeals to historians and other professional researchers; it is, after all, a thorough and well-researched primary source. Unlike many other such books, however, it also appeals to more general readers. For example, as noted earlier, it can serve as a good primer for those interested in learning more about Watergate. It may also hold interest for other types of readers - those curious about the journalistic process, those with a general interest in Nixon or the time period, etc. Clearly, then, the broad range of appeal offered by the book is one of the main strengths serving to make it a worthwhile read.
All of this is not meant to suggest, however, that the book is perfect; indeed, it does have a number of defects. Fortunately, these are all minor points that do not detract significantly from the book's high level of overall quality. For instance, throughout the book, the authors continually indulge in the annoying habit of referring to themselves in the third person. A single, random example will suffice to illustrate this deplorable tendency:"Bernstein and Woodward were interpreting this reticence as a sign that their suspicions were correct." Despite the inherently negative nature of such self-referential statements, one can (perhaps) argue for its justification in this one instance; after all, in a book written by two people, readers would likely be puzzled by the use of first person pronouns. A second minor defect is the book's lack of citations. As previously mentioned, a bibliography would be superfluous, but a comprehensive list of the Washington Post articles - as well as the handful of others - referred to in the book would have been a useful addition for the curious. Finally, a third minor problem is the simple fact that the multitude of names thrown out during the course of the book can be confusing and difficult to keep track of for the uninitiated; this problem is eased somewhat by the helpful index and cast of characters provided by the authors. Again, this small amount of relatively insignificant problems detracts - but only slightly - from what otherwise remains a very worthwhile and readable book.
In summary, All The President's Men is an interesting, highly accessible, and well-executed book. Its strengths include its overall readability, its generally informative nature, and its wide range of appeal. A few minor flaws mar only the surface of a book that is of a very high overall quality. Though it was written more than three decades ago, it remains a vital chronicle of a specific time and place, as well as an eternal testament to the importance of detecting and spotlighting corruption in government. Consequently, it has earned the right to be named a member of that rarest of groups - books that can be enjoyed by scholars and general readers alike.
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