Thursday, November 11, 2010

Pg. 99: Dan P. McAdams' "George W. Bush and the Redemptive Dream"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: George W. Bush and the Redemptive Dream: A Psychological Portrait by Dan P. McAdams.

About the book, from the publisher:
George W. Bush remains a highly controversial figure, a man for whom millions of Americans have very strong feelings. Dan McAdams' book offers an astute psychological portrait of Bush, one of the first biographies to appear since he left office as well as the first to draw systematically from personality science to analyze his life. McAdams, an international leader in personality psychology and the narrative study of lives, focuses on several key events in Bush's life, such as the death of his sister at age 7, his commitment to sobriety on his 40th birthday, and his reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and his decision to invade Iraq. He sheds light on Bush's life goals, the story he constructed to make sense of his life, and the psychological dynamics that account for his behavior. Although there are many popular biographies of George W. Bush, McAdams' is the first true psychological analysis based on established theories and the latest research. Short and focused, written in an engaging style, this book offers a truly penetrating look at our forty-third president.
Learn more about George W. Bush and the Redemptive Dream at the Oxford University Press website.

Dan P. McAdams is the Chair of the Psychology Department and Director of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By, which won the American Psychological Association’s 2006 William James Award for the best general-interest book in Psychology.

The Page 99 Test: George W. Bush and the Redemptive Dream.

--Marshal Zeringue