Woman of the house biography subject
Woman of the House: The Rise of Nancy Pelosi
October 12, 2019
Woman of the House, The Rise of Nancy Pelosi is a biography of Nancy Pelosi written by Vincent Bzdek and published in 2008. It covers her whole life, from her childhood to her first year or so as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Woman of the House, The Rise of Nancy Pelosi is one of the nearly twenty books about politicians I read in the summer of 2019 while researching a book about incumbents, candidates, and other politicians. Published in 2008, it is the oldest of the biographies I read for this project.
I am giving the book 3 of 5 stars because, although it is interesting and reasonably thorough, it is also a bit out of date. Also, the book contains a lot of identity politics - something I personally feel is distracting, off-topic, and anachronistic. I read this book to learn about Nancy Pelosi, not all the other women who were first to do this or that.
One of the most entertaining things I learned about Nancy from this book is that, after Nancy was sworn in as Speaker of the House, "Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, former members of her favorite band, the Grateful Dead ... were there to perform for Pelosi's party" [p. 136]. Although having a loose and jazzy band such as the Grateful Dead as the ambitious and determined Nancy's "favorite" band seems a bit out of character, Vincent Bzdek certainly knows her better than I do, so I have to take his word for it. The Grateful Dead is also my favorite band, so cool!
Another one of the more interesting things I learned from the book is how religious Nancy is. The author dedicates all of Chapter 2, entitled The Social Gospel, to Nancy's education at the Institute of Notre Dame, an all-girls Catholic High School in Baltimore, and Trinity College - now Trinity Washington University - in Washington, D.C.
As a Catholic born into a political family in 1940 - Nancy's father Tommy D'Alessandro won 22 elections in a row - Nancy grew up admiring John F. Kennedy. The author quotes her as saying in an interview in 2001, "I certainly was inspired, as were other members of my generation, by President Kennedy," [p. 48].
Vincent Bzdek expands on this by quoting from her "speech at the National Hispanic Prayer breakfast in 2005" [p. 48].
The images I draw of the personalities of these politicians show that deep down many of them are more similar than we might think. This quote shows that these similarities are very real, yet clouded by decades of biased thinking, writing, and bitterly partisan propaganda coming from both sides.
After reading Vincent Bzdek's book about Nancy Pelosi, I created a profile for her and included her spiritual portrait in my ebook Visualizing Politicians' Personalities, 2019 Incumbents and Candidates. I based the abstract image of Nancy's personality in the ebook on this book, so it of course contains more about Woman of the House, The Rise of Nancy Pelosi - in case you are interested.
Woman of the House, The Rise of Nancy Pelosi is one of the nearly twenty books about politicians I read in the summer of 2019 while researching a book about incumbents, candidates, and other politicians. Published in 2008, it is the oldest of the biographies I read for this project.
I am giving the book 3 of 5 stars because, although it is interesting and reasonably thorough, it is also a bit out of date. Also, the book contains a lot of identity politics - something I personally feel is distracting, off-topic, and anachronistic. I read this book to learn about Nancy Pelosi, not all the other women who were first to do this or that.
One of the most entertaining things I learned about Nancy from this book is that, after Nancy was sworn in as Speaker of the House, "Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, former members of her favorite band, the Grateful Dead ... were there to perform for Pelosi's party" [p. 136]. Although having a loose and jazzy band such as the Grateful Dead as the ambitious and determined Nancy's "favorite" band seems a bit out of character, Vincent Bzdek certainly knows her better than I do, so I have to take his word for it. The Grateful Dead is also my favorite band, so cool!
Another one of the more interesting things I learned from the book is how religious Nancy is. The author dedicates all of Chapter 2, entitled The Social Gospel, to Nancy's education at the Institute of Notre Dame, an all-girls Catholic High School in Baltimore, and Trinity College - now Trinity Washington University - in Washington, D.C.
As a Catholic born into a political family in 1940 - Nancy's father Tommy D'Alessandro won 22 elections in a row - Nancy grew up admiring John F. Kennedy. The author quotes her as saying in an interview in 2001, "I certainly was inspired, as were other members of my generation, by President Kennedy," [p. 48].
Vincent Bzdek expands on this by quoting from her "speech at the National Hispanic Prayer breakfast in 2005" [p. 48].
"The America he [John F. Kennedy] believed in," she went on, "is the one we believe in today: one in which each person can practice his or her own faith in his or her own way." It is our faith, she said, that obligates us to do something about the issues of education, healthcare for the uninsured, poverty, jobs, diversity. "That is why so many of the policies we pursue should not be viewed as legislation, or regulations, or programs. They should be statements of our values." Preach the gospel through deeds, in other words.
— From Woman of the House, The Rise of Nancy Pelosi, by Vincent Bzdek, p. 48.
The images I draw of the personalities of these politicians show that deep down many of them are more similar than we might think. This quote shows that these similarities are very real, yet clouded by decades of biased thinking, writing, and bitterly partisan propaganda coming from both sides.
After reading Vincent Bzdek's book about Nancy Pelosi, I created a profile for her and included her spiritual portrait in my ebook Visualizing Politicians' Personalities, 2019 Incumbents and Candidates. I based the abstract image of Nancy's personality in the ebook on this book, so it of course contains more about Woman of the House, The Rise of Nancy Pelosi - in case you are interested.