John Bartlow Martin (1915–1987)

1383 Adlai Stevenson of Illinois: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson, by John Bartlow Martin (read 31 Mar 1976) This is the second volume of Martin's biography (it appears I have never read Volume I!) and covers his life from 1952 till his death. It is not a great biography. It is choppy, and has little of the definitive marks about it that I so admire in a biography--and so much covers material of a time I followed so intensively that it seems stale to me today. 24 years have gone by, but still 1952 seems like only yesterday--it would seem far fresher to me to read of Byzantine doings in 535. Also, Martin, heavily involved in the 1952 campaign, is not the ideal biographer, even though he is at times not uncritical. All in all, while the book was very compelling and easy to read, I was not extremely moved.… (mere)