An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents, Smith recreates Ford’s hardscrabble childhood in Michigan, his early anti-establishment politics and his lifelong love affair with the former Betty Bloomer, whose impact on American culture he predicted would outrank his own. As president, Ford guided the nation through its worst Constitutional crisis since the Civil War and broke the back of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression— accomplishing both with little fanfare or credit (at least until 2001 when the JFK Library gave him its prestigious Profile in Courage Award in belated recognition of the Nixon pardon). Illustrated with sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, this definitive biography, a decade in the making, will change history’s views of a man whose warning about presidential arrogance (“God help the country”) is more relevant than ever. 

Product Details:

• Author- Richard Norton Smith, a member of the Old Sturbridge Village Board of Trustees 
• Hardcover, 832 pages
  
• 6" x 2" x 9.25"