Wow! eBook
The Education of a Senator: From JFK to Trump
Author(s): Lamar Alexander (Author), Jon Meacham (Foreword)
- Publisher: Post Hill Press
- Publication Date: May 19, 2026
- Language: English
- Print length: 568 pages
- ISBN-10: B0FWZX15NQ
- ISBN-13: 9798895656488
Book Description
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
A behind-the-scenes story of the last sixty years of American politics, told with purpose and humor by a political legend who worked with ten presidents, made deals with both Obama and Trump, and believes that serving in public office is the best way to help the largest number of people and to keep our Republic from falling apart.
“To read Lamar Alexander’s vivid and surprising memoir is to be in conversation with a man who knows how to tell a great story.” —
Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author“What a wonderful and refreshing memoir! Lamar Alexander has been a gift to us—more interested in getting things done and improving the lives of others than in grabbing headlines and bashing an opponent. Bravo!” —
Ken Burns, Filmmaker, The American Revolution“Revealing and highly entertaining…takes us inside some of the most important moments in our nation’s history.”
—Karl Rove, Sr. Advisor to President George W. BushCan we survive this?” worried friends ask Lamar Alexander.
A US senator who started in JFK’s Justice Department, worked in the Nixon White House, turned down serving as GOP Watergate counsel and as Ford’s campaign manager, walked for six months across Tennessee to become governor, lost two runs for president, and served as a university president and education secretary before winning three senate terms—Lamar Alexander answers that question with a resounding, “Yes.”
Over nearly six decades, Alexander saw the public arena from as many angles as any living American. With wry humor and wisdom, he reminds us that Americans have asked this question in times more troubling than today—through wars, economic panics, pandemics, and social upheaval.
Alexander paints insider portraits of the ten presidents he worked with—including the one best suited to the job, the most skillful politician, most accomplished in foreign affairs, most “normal,” and another who was on his way to being the most consequential.
His book is for Americans hungry for optimism and leadership. It will inspire anyone who wants to serve in public office but doesn’t know how to start. It is a blueprint for those who want to join the 519,682 Americans already elected to office and the millions who work with them.
“I woke up every day thinking I might do something good for my state or country and went to bed most nights thinking that I had.” —Lamar Alexander
Editorial Reviews
Review
“To read Lamar Alexander’s vivid and surprising memoir is to be in conversation with a man who knows how to tell a great story—and who has given his life to a country that needs to hear what he has to say.” — Jon Meacham, Author of
Destiny and Power“For eighteen years, there has been Lamar Alexander, and there’s been the rest of us…[he is] hands-down one of the most brilliant, most thoughtful, and most effective legislators any of us have ever seen.” — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch MConnell, December 2, 2020
“What a wonderful and refreshing memoir! It reminds us of the not-too-distant past when people got to know opposing politicians and their views, searched for ways to compromise, and never forgot the profound responsibility of citizenship in a democratic society. Lamar Alexander has been that gift to us—a dedicated, civil servant more interested in getting things done and improving the lives of others than in grabbing the headlines, bashing an opponent, or participating in the partisanship that seems to suffocate today’s politics. This is a reminder of what a great man, committed to virtue and reason, can accomplish. Bravo! — Ken Burns, Filmmaker
“Self-effacing, often humorous, but in the end a valuable operating manual for a politics that once worked.” — Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Alexander was also known for campaigning in a plaid shirt and performing on the piano with twenty-seven symphonies and on the Grand Ol’ Opry. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and New York University Law School. He and his late wife Honey were married for fifty-four years, had four children and nine grandchildren. His parents were teachers. A seventh generation Tennessean, Alexander lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains near Maryville where he grew up. This is his tenth book, all written by the author himself.
