Dark horse: A biography of Wendell Willkie

Long before John McCain began his political career, Wendell Willkie served as the model for a Republican Party maverick. A Democrat for most of life, Willkie emerged as one of the most prominent critics of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s. His charismatic public persona and opposition to the administration's policies towards business made him a national figure, and at the urging of admirers Willkie became a Republican as a prelude to winning the GOP presidential nomination in 1940. With a world war as a backdrop, Willkie was defeated in a close election, yet much to the chagrin of Republican leaders he used his newfound prominence to endorse his opponent's foreign policy -- a move that contributed to his defeat when he sought a rematch four years later.

A longtime political reporter and columnist, Steve Neal's biography offers quite a few insights into the factors and failings of Willkie's presidential run Yet his book overall is a disappointment as a biography. Neal devotes most of the book to Willkie's political career, with over a third of its pages spent on his 1940 presidential campaign alone. While this makes sense from the standpoint of Willkie's significance to American history, it effectively condenses the majority of Willkie's years as a lawyer and business executive to a prelude to his political activities. Often, key developments in Willkie's life are not analyzed or even described, merely noted in Neal's rush to get to what he wants to write. As a result, much of Willkie's development, particularly of his political views, tends to get lost. The result is an account that, while readable and even gripping in its evocation of the Willkie phenomenon, comes up short as the book it is advertised as being.