Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955 Book

This book has been sitting on my shelf for several years now and passed over at least a half dozen times as I considered my next "read". Granted McCormick is a major figure in Chicago history - owner/editor of The Chicago Tribune during the first half of the 20th Century - but my rationale in avoiding this bio was simple - I really didn't think this book, because of its subject - a "press-mogul" - would be that interesting. I could not have been more mistaken. The Colonel is engaging, fascinating, and well-written; full of historical tidbits and personalities, anecdotes, dramatic Citizen Kane moments, as well as laugh out loud moments - Because love or hate "The Colonel" - he was never boring.

In hindsight my knowledge of McCormick was at best limited, i.e. staunch Republican, isolationist, anti-New Deal/FDR. There is so much more to McCormick's life and that's what makes this book absolutely fascinating - starting with the fact McCormick was Joseph Medill's grandson. During the second half of the 19th Century Grandpa Medill occupied the same position, made similar boasts and stepped on almost as many toes as the Colonel.

As the author points out in his Prologue, (and chronicles in the book), McCormick was a man of startling contradictions - a patriot that seemed to find fault with every move his country, (read politicians), made; a man proud of his time as a soldier, (i.e. "the Colonel"), who hated the military; an isolationist and Anglophobe, he had no problem traveling the world or chumming around with Winston Churchill; judgmental with others' matrimonial habits, the Colonel had no issues with wooing two women away from their husbands.

I am just scratching the surface here concerning the man, the "world's greatest newspaper", and this biography. Fascinating read and highly recommended.