With literary flare and scholarly precision, Robert Strong sheds light on how President George Bush's character--his loyalty, compassion, audacity, and other traits--shaped his approach to the important foreign policy decisions of his administration. A particular virtue of Strong's approach is the use he makes of the Miller Center's extensive oral history interviews of leading administration figures who knew the president well and saw him up close.

Michael Nelson, Rhodes College

Robert Strong deftly demonstrates in this illuminating, and timely, study that presidential character counts. Taking us behind the scenes for some of the most important foreign policy developments of the last century, Strong relates how the basic traits of George H. W. Bush’s character, including audacity and compassion, forged his administration’s response to a cluster of global crises at the end of the Cold War. Bush did not merely convene a team of remarkable professionals to manage the nation’s problems at an historic moment, he led them through the force of his character. Strong shows how that reshaped the world.

Russell L. Riley, University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs