John Mccain

This reissue of the penetrating biography of Senator John McCain, the man who may be the next president of the United States, by celebrated author Robert Timberg now has a new foreword that updates readers on the politician’s life since this book’s original publication in 1999. In John McCain: An American Odyssey, Timberg provides a riveting account of McCain’s remarkable life — from his rambunctious childhood and his madcap escapades as a U.S. Naval Academy midshipman to his grim experiences as a combat pilot and POW in Vietnam, where the North Vietnamese held him prisoner for five and a half years. Most important, the author illuminates Senator McCain’s postwar evolution into one of our country’s most distinguished politicians and a formidable presidential candidate. This biography probes deeply into the life of this hugely colorful, straight-talking American original. It is a rich and captivating portrait of one of America’s most fascinating and provocative public figures — a man who has captured the imagination of millions of Americans and who will continue to be a most prominent figure in the American political landscape.

If, as you’re reading John McCain: An American Odyssey, you feel a sense of déjà vu, don’t be alarmed–you may very well have read this book before. Robert Timberg has extracted from his 1995 book The Nightingale’s Song, which dealt with several Naval Academy graduates who went on to serve in Vietnam, those passages that involved Senator John McCain, a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential elections. To this Timberg has added some new, updated material.

Roughly half of this story is covered in McCain’s own memoir, Faith of My Fathers, including McCain’s early military career and an internment in a North Vietnamese POW camp that lasted nearly six years. But it’s presented here from an objective, journalistic perspective (and Timberg’s own stint at Annapolis informs the sections on the Naval Academy immeasurably). But there’s also strong material on McCain’s political career, from his first campaigns in Arizona through the dark days of his involvement in the “Keating Five” scandal of the early ’90s up to his role in 1999 as a critic of American involvement in the NATO attack on Serbia (which, McCain said, wasn’t strong enough).

John McCain: An American Odyssey