NYT: Staffers at The Times on the Books They Enjoyed in 2023
“Despite its somewhat formidable length, I read Andrew Meier’s MORGENTHAU: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty in just a handful of sittings. … [I]t was a riveting portrait about power dynamics in Washington and in New York City.
… People seeking clarity on the world that shaped another president, Donald J. Trump, will be interested in details about the transactional friendship between him and Robert Morgenthau.”
Maggie Haberman, “Staffers at The Times on the Books They Enjoyed in 2023,” New York Times, Dec 28, 2023.
Semafor: Best Books of 2023
“Semafor’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith called this a “singular, rich and deep lens on four generations of American power and American Jewish identity.””
“Best Books of 2023,” Semafor Flagship Weekend, December 16, 2023.
NY Times: 6 Paperbacks to Read This Week
“Four generations of this era-defining lineage are traced in Meier’s gracefully written account, which begins with the family’s roots in 19th-century Bavaria and culminates with Robert M. Morgenthau, Manhattan’s longest-serving district attorney and a U.S. attorney under President Kennedy.”
Miguel Salazar, “6 Paperbacks to Read This Week,” Books Desk, New York Times, December 15, 2023.
The New Yorker: Best Books of 2023
“There’s enough here for four separate biographies, but Meier ably synthesizes the various strands, finding family likenesses among his disparate subjects.”
“Morgenthau, by Andrew Meier (Random House),” Briefly Noted: The Best Books of 2023, The New Yorker, February 20, 2023 (February 27, 2023 print edition).
MOMENT: An American dynasty gets its due
“[T]o relate the story of four generations of Morgenthaus, our reviewer Robert Siegel says, ‘is to relate a century and a half of New York City and American history.’ Siegel plunged undeterred into this magisterial thousand-word-plus biography, and you should too.”
“12 Books That Made Us Think,” MOMENT Magazine, December 30, 2022.
Wall Street Journal: A consistently hypnotic multigenerational biography
“With the appearance of Andrew Meier’s voluminous and consistently hypnotic multigenerational biography, Morgenthau, it is now possible to delve even deeper into this only-in-America dynasty: its origins in Germany, its fall from, and later return, to wealth and influence, and its scions’ unshakable commitment to public service….
A former Time Magazine correspondent and Russia specialist, Mr. Meier draws the reader into the family’s private and professional lives with verve, a marvelous ear for anecdote and a gift for cherry-picking from his prodigious research….
One would imagine that dignity, selflessness and inexhaustibility can neither endure in a family nor engage a reader for nearly 900 pages. Mr. Meier proves otherwise. And his magisterial book vividly reminds us of the days when immigrants yearned not to preserve ancestral identity but to live the American dream. As Henry Sr. proudly told a group of fellow Jewish elites: “I am the amalgam of what’s been produced by putting a little boy in that [melting] pot and mixing him with a part of yourselves.” The same can be said of all the remarkable Morgenthaus.”
Harold Holzer, “'Morgenthau' Review: The Men in the Arena,” Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2022 [paywall].