Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Rating:
Summary: Newt?
Review: Newt who? Is he still around? Put a fork in him...he's done.

Rating:
Summary: A no-nonsense analysis from someone who was there
Review: The talking heads from the networks and elsewhere always theorize what they think may of happened. Mostly according to what they heard from others who heard from others. This book is a piece of history, written by the man who was there in the room negotiating. The former Speaker is very honest and candid in his synapsis of what really happened. He tells where he went wrong and what he learned. Even though he is not the Speaker anymore, after reading this book you just know we haven't heard the last of Newt yet.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating insider's view of power in transition
Review: This is a wonderful book for anyone curious about the remarkable times in which we live, the influence of public policy on our lives, the process of ideological legislation, and the limitations of power. In the amazing heat of the American style of public policy debate, Mr. Gingerich carves out a moment of historical perspective: nothing in American democracy is swift, nothing is certain.

His personal journey through the classic struggle between the Pragmatic and the Romantic is filled with surprising frankness and great personal charm.

I loved the book, and would recommend it highly.

With remarkable clarity he illustrates the institutional obstacles to change which make American Democracy and its historical traditions such a fascinating and contradictory experience.

Mr. Gingerich presides over the Congress in a time of incredible societal change as nearly all working Americans move strongly into capital investments and technology is in the earliest stages of transforming the workplace from the last hundred years into the next hundred years.

While the fierce ideological struggles of the present time will be forgotten within ten years as America transforms itself, Mr. Gingerich's book with its engaging historical perspective over the intensely personal politics of the present time, will stand as great advice to those men and women on how to fight the battles which will determine the new rules, as information and its access shapes the coming struggles over economic and cultural life in the twenty first century.

Other recommended reading: Alone , Winston Churchill by William Manchester - also a great political biography set in an historical perspective. The book is much larger but contains many of the same lessons for visionary leaders in times of transistion.