Product Description
Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
An extraordinarily frank, honest, and generous book by one of America's most famous and admired women, Personal History is, as its title suggests, a book composed of both personal memoir and history.
It is the story of Graham's parents: the multimillionaire father who left private business and government service to buy and restore the down-and-out Washington Post, and the formidable, self-absorbed mother who was more interested in her political and charity work, and her passionate friendships with men like Thomas Mann and Adlai Stevenson, than in her children.
It is the story of how The Washington Post struggled to succeed -- a fascinating and instructive business history as told from the inside (the paper has been run by Graham herself, her father, her husband, and now her son).
It is the story of Phil Graham -- Kay's brilliant, charismatic husband (he clerked for two Supreme Court justices) -- whose plunge into manic-depression, betrayal, and eventual suicide is movingly and charitably recounted.
Best of all, it is the story of Kay Graham herself. She was brought up in a family of great wealth, yet she learned and understood nothing about money. She is half-Jewish, yet -- incredibly -- remained unaware of it for many years.She describes herself as having been naive and awkward, yet intelligent and energetic. She married a man she worshipped, and he fascinated and educated her, and then, in his illness, turned from her and abused her. This destruction of her confidence and happiness is a drama in itself, followed by the even more intense drama of her new life as the head of a great newspaper and a great company, a famous (and even feared) woman in her own right. Hers is a life that came into its own with a vengeance -- a success story on every level.
Graham's book is populated with a cast of fascinating characters, from fifty years of presidents (and their wives), to Steichen, Brancusi, Felix Frankfurter, Warren Buffett (her great advisor and protector), Robert McNamara, George Schultz (her regular tennis partner), and, of course, the great names from the Post: Woodward, Bernstein, and Graham's editorpartner, Ben Bradlee. She writes of them, and of the most dramatic moments of her stewardship of the Post (including the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the pressmen's strike), with acuity, humor, and good judgment. Her book is about learning by doing, about growing and growing up, about Washington, and about a woman liberated by both circumstance and her own great strengths.
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Amazon.com
In lieu of an unrevealing Famous-People-I-Have-Known autobiography, the owner of the Washington Post has chosen to be remarkably candid about the insecurities prompted by remote parents and a difficult marriage to the charismatic, manic-depressive Phil Graham, who ran the newspaper her father acquired. Katharine's account of her years as subservient daughter and wife is so painful that by the time she finally asserts herself at the Post following Phil's suicide in 1963 (more than halfway through the book), readers will want to cheer. After that, Watergate is practically an anticlimax.
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 The pefrect autobiography ( jackyred )
Absolutely perfect biography. Graham's book is frank in ways few would care to be. Her leadership of the Washington Post has been much talked about, and I'm a big fan of the paper, so it was a fascinating story. When she took over the Post in the 1960s, women could not be found in too many positions of power. She honestly discusses her difficulties, self doubts, and mistakes in ways one is not likely to find in many other places. Since I find politics interesting, I appreciated Graham's insights into the development of media over the twentieth century and her candid insider thoughts on some of the most important and powerful leaders of the 20th century.
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Excellent Read, Every Page Brings Insights
It is long (642 pages), and the print is small. Why would anyone want to read it? Because every page has something of interest in it. And because this is not only the personal history of Katharine Graham, but a view of the United States from a woman reluctantly thrust into power by the death of her Washington Post husband. The time covered is from the early 1900s, when her parents met, through the early 1990s. Think of how life changed during that time.
Mrs. Graham was raised by nannies in New York while her parents were busy helping out in Washington. She showed her independence by attending the radical University of Chicago and working before she married. When Katherine's father stepped down from management of the Washington Post, her husband, Phil, took his place. When Phil became ill and died, it was she who became president of the Washington Post Company.
Constantly during this sweep through politics, labor relations, corporate management, the rise of feminism, the importance of communications, and much more, Graham weaves her personal growing consciousness of where she and other women stand in relationship to it all. She writes of the help she received and downplays her own acumen in becoming the only woman in the Fortune 500. Never does she flaunt who she was, who she became, and the power she held.
Every page brings not only her personal insights about the (mostly) maturing of America, but also explains how she gains confidence while remaining concerned with and involved in her own family as well. An excellent read, but don't expect to finish it in one reading.
by Judith Helburn
for StorycircleBookReviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women
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A Life Lesson
This is a great book about a great woman! Interesting to see how even the privileged have difficult experiences in life and how it all only depend on us. We are very capable of achieving our goals and this book shows that even though it might not be easy, in the end, it can be very rewarding. This book shows a great insight in the history of newspaper business and politics.
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 Insider look at Washington
My only regret is that I did not pay more attention to Katharine Graham and the Washington Post while she was alive. Through unveiling her own insecurities and illustrating how she moved into one of the most powerful women in the world, I learned US History and the trials of a CEO woman in the 1960s and forward.
Ms. Graham reveals much about "inside Washington" and does a particularly good job of making the "players" come to life. I really hated to see the book end. Yet, Ms. Graham did what she set out to do -- documented a time in our history. Kathy Condon Executive Coach
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Great book
Fantastic, gripping book, though it bogged down for me near the end with the minutia of labor/management disputes at the Washington Post. Still recommend highly.
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