The Peacemaker: Nixon: The Man, President, and My Friend by Ben Stein is a fascinating memoir. This book is an intimate look at the Nixons and their contemporaries, as seen my a colleague. It was incredibly eye opening in so many ways. This is not a comprehensive look at Nixon nor is it a biography. However, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a fresh look at that time in American history. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

This book was incredibly interesting. I feel like I learned a lot even though I feel like this space in the book world can be pretty saturated. I loved it.

This is a very personal and adoring biography of Richard Nixon. It does have a bit of a tendency to hyperboles but it can be forgiven as the author clearly, and with justification, admires Mr. Nixon greatly. As someone who was following higher education during the Nixon years, and who was somewhat of a news junkie (and later became a journalist), it became clear that so much of my perception was based on a very biased viewpoint. I always thought that I was not swayed by outside forces but I see now that I missed some of the very positive things that Nixon accomplished.

Today the so called news organizations are so rigidly in one camp or another, journalistic integrity is a thing of the past. But I now see that even when we thought we were being open minded, we were not. I certainly hope that at this point in my life I can see both sides and decide for myself. And this book goes a long way to re-jigging my perceptions of the man. It opened my eyes to a number of things and while I do not think he was the misjudged innocent that Mr. Stein believes he was, I do think he was mocked and ridiculed unfairly.

History, I suspect, will be far kinder to Nixon than to many Presidents. There are things that only he could have and did do. He deserves a fairer assessment and this book goes a long way to providing it. My only concern, as I received a copy to read and review, is that it might have benefited from tougher editing. But I still give it four purrs and two paws up.

I’m not sure how to “categorize” Ben Stein’s “The Peacemaker.” It’s not really a Nixon biography, nor an inclusive Ben Stein memoir. Neither is the tome a powerful social commentary on one of our most disliked presidents. At best, it’s an historical love letter from a blindly devoted insider (Stein) to a former boss & close family friend (Nixon). The writing is enjoyable, & the narrative engaging, but Stein’s piety grew tedious after 228 pages.

Ben Stein has a background in comedy. You may remember seeing him playing an extremely drab, uninspiring high school teacher in both Ferris Bueller's Day Off and the original version of nostalgic US comedy drama, The Wonder Years.
He was genuinely funny in both of these. But this book is no joke. In his past, Stein was also a Nixon speech writer. He served with Richard Nixon. He knew Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon was a friend of his.. And now, he's devoted this entire book to arguing Nixon was a totally flawless individual who never did anything wrong in his entire life.
In short, the book is completely bonkers.
I'm not denying Nixon didn't had some good qualities. He re-opened diplomatic relations with Mao's China, for example, something that was seen as a major achievement in 1972. Compared to Trump, he also looks like a genuine political titan. But then so does everyone.
But Stein goes much much further. He repeatedly refers to Watergate as the "phoney Watergate so-called scandal" and blames any criticisms ever made about by Nixon by anyone on the supposedly liberal US media. According to him, no one has "ever shown that RN had any guilty knowledge of anything connected with Watergate." To which the only possible answer is: yes,, they have! For example, Nixon's own Oval Office tapes which prove he was involved in an active cover-up and totally incriminate him.
There are many more examples I could give, but I have no intention of wasting a single further moment of my life on this dishonest, misleading piece of nonsense propaganda. I don't think you should either.