This superb biography is a richly detailed, intimate, surprising portrait of Adlai E. Stevenson—the public figure and the private. A long personal relationship with Stevenson, plus ten years of extensive research and access to Stevenson's private papers, has given John Bartlow Martin a rare insight into his subject—into the many forces that shaped, influenced, and limited this most extraordinary man. Adlai Stevenson was as complex a personality as ever ran for national office in America—ambitious, reticent, naive, amusing, warm, charming, and calculating. Twice denied election to the presidency, he is nevertheless remembered as a towering figure in the life of the nation—as a distinguished Governor, as the leader who respected the intelligence of Americans, and later as America's most honored and undermined UN ambassador. He has entered American history as a powerful force for reason, grace, and dignity in public life. John Bartlow Martin charts in meticulous detail not only the outer journey but also the profound inner strengths and contradictions of Adlai Stevenson. He has provided, as well, a clear analysis of Stevenson's Midwestern roots, of his rise to national prominence, and of his manifold influence on American politics. The result is a study of the man and of the American political system in action in the twentieth century—regionally, nationally, internationally. Mr. Martin has made extensive use of Stevenson's personal political papers and of his private correspondence. He draws heavily on a wide range of interviews with those who knew the man—from his family and his friends to his closest associates in government, politics, and the law. His findings shed new light on a number of crucial episodes in Stevenson's life—including his much publicized and little understood divorce; his concealed, early political ambitions; and his relations with the men and women who played important roles in his private and professional life. ADLAI STEVENSON OF ILLINOIS covers Stevenson's life through his initial bid for the presidency in 1952. A second book, Adlai Stevenson and the World, will complete this classic of American political literature—unquestionably the most substantial portrait of a man who was statesman and spokesman for an American dream.

That bleak November day in Springfield after the election it did not seem so, but the truth is that the best years of Adlai Stevenson's leadership lay ahead. So ended the first book of John Bartlow Martin's sweeping biography of one of the most admired and revered political figures of our time. Here now is the eagerly awaited conclusion to the work that critics have already acclaimed a classic of political biography. ADLAI STEVENSON AND THE WORLD covers Stevenson's career following his first campaign for the presidency in 1952 through his death in 1965: years in which he occupied a position unique in both American and international politics—that of a statesman who held no elected public office yet commanded the respect and influence of a worldwide constituency. During these years, Stevenson stood for many as the guardian and spokesman of the American conscience, articulating humane and liberal traditions against a contagion of unreason and anti-intellectualism. Throughout the fifties his views on such issues as nuclear testing, civil rights, federal aid to education, the draft, and American foreign policy beyond mere partisan railings. They were clarion calls to common sense that were indeed proved visionary a decade later when formulated into politics of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet it was Stevenson's tragedy—and quite possibly his country's—that he was a man before his time, that he was again to be defeated in his bid for the Oval Office. And that later in his years as Ambassador to the United Nations while he represented our country there better than anyone else ever, he himself was at the same time absolutely uncomfortable with the Kennedy administration he tried to serve. With exceptional vividness and candor, John Bartlow Martin completes his portrait of Adlai Stevenson, giving us the full measure of the man, the making of a world leader, and, almost, the making of a President.