Books, Arts & Manners: Hot for Coolidge

Coolidge: An American Enigma, by Robert Sobel (Regnery, 462 pp., $34.95)

FINDING that elusive last piece of the puzzle that was Calvin Coolidge has frustrated historians for 75 years. Robert Sobel fares no better than the rest, but he has a knack for digging up obscure quotes that illustrate the unusual scope of the frustration. The best of these comes from a now-forgotten journalist who called Coolidge “one of the two great enigmas of the first third of the twentieth century, the other being the popularity of the play Abie’s Irish Rose.”

About the Author

Florence King

Florence King was a contributing editor of National Review.

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Coolidge: An American Enigma, by Robert Sobel (Regnery, 462 pp., $34.95)

FINDING that elusive last piece of the puzzle that was Calvin Coolidge has frustrated historians for 75 years. Robert Sobel fares no better than the rest, but he has a knack for digging up obscure quotes that illustrate the unusual scope of the frustration. The best of these comes from a now-forgotten journalist who called Coolidge “one of the two great enigmas of the first third of the twentieth century, the other being the popularity of the play Abie’s Irish Rose.”