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Summary: Resiliency and Emotional Toughness of the Self-Taught CEO
Review: Ms. Katharine Graham's autobiography explores many dimensions of life that will appeal to readers: lifestyles of the rich and famous with her celebrity and society friends; an inside look at one of America's most powerful and famous families in the 20th century; overcoming the personal tragedy of being married to a brilliant, manic-depressive cheater who was nasty to her; a history of the rise of the Washington Post from a minor D.C. paper to the top ranks of international journalism; becoming the head of a family that had been dominated by strong personalities who had put her in a supporting role; seeing the interactions of the press with presidents up close; and learning to be a female publisher and CEO on the job with almost no prior experience. If you are like me, you will find the sections of the book about her growing up as Andre Meyer's daughter, Watergate, the strike with the pressman's union at the Post, and her relationship with Warren Buffett to be the most interesting parts of the book. If, like me, you decide that you find Ms. Graham appealing, it will probably be because of her willingness to do the right thing, even when very painful and dangerous to her, and her loyalty to others . . . even when that loyalty may not have been earned. Even to her enemies, she held out olive branches to keep lines of communication open . . . which were often rejected. Although the book is candid about her own failings (having been too sheltered as a child and wife, making lots of mistakes in picking and working with people at the Washington Post Company, and being too accepting of male chauvinism) and family members who are deceased (especially her father, mother, and husband), she pulls back from any significant observations about many of her friends and acquaintances who are still living. You will see these people primarily from the perspective of having been lunch and dinner companions and guests. A curtain of privacy is also pulled over long sections of her life. For example, you will find out the names of the people and the yacht that she disappeared on for several weeks, but nothing about what occurred. On the other hand, CEO autobiographies usually toot the horn of the CEO. The closest this one comes to tooting is quoting Warren Buffett in pointing out that Washington Post Company stock grew more than double the rate of any other similar company during the time when she was CEO. Actually, even that observation is modest. As measured by stock-price performance, Ms. Graham is one of the great CEOs of the 20th century. She has also left behind a legacy of commitment to a free press from the Pentagon Papers publication and the Watergate exposures that will stand as a beacon for future publishers. In either case, she could have lost the bulk of her wealth and influence had things turned out differently. Most CEOs would be reluctant to take those kinds of risks in the public interest. Certainly, there was no financial windfall to taking these courses. It was simply the right thing to do. Thank you, Ms. Graham! Have you ever been in a situation where you were supposed to know how to do something, but had no clue? Throughout her business career, Ms. Graham was placed in that awkward situation. Towards the end of the book, she reveals that she wished that she had attended Harvard Business School. Throughout her business career, Ms. Graham reveals here feeling like a fraud and not knowing what questions to ask. But in business, it's usually more important what you do than what you know. And she kept moving forward until she found a method that worked. That kind of perseverance takes great moral courage, and I was impressed to realize just how much more difficult her accomplishments were to achieve than they seemed to outsiders. Where should you be taking a more active role in choosing your life's direction? Where should you be more understanding of friends and family members? Where should you keep the lines of communications open? Where should you draw the line at accommodation?
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Summary: Tricky Balance of Personal and Historical
Review: Katharine Graham's lengthy authobiography is for the most part engaging and readable, yet somehow I came away from its 600+ pages feeling like I was missing some essential part of her story. There is an odd distance to this book, even in its moments of extreme candor, that left me feeling I was hearing only part of the tale.
This may be due to the necessary balancing of the personal and political in such a book: frequently we are pulled out of a major event, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, to attend to her daughter's dress or dance, never to return. This is of course one of the book's major themes: Graham as a woman in a man's professional world, slowly awakening to the particular challenges of her situation, and that of professional women of her generation. It thus seems churlish to complain about the memoir's somewhat schizophrenic nature. Yet in the final analysis I still feel that the book, fascinating as much of it is, is holding back some crucial element that might make greater sense of the events described and Graham's journey from doting wife to powerhouse publisher less theoretical.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books I have read this year
Review: I got a little frustrated reading the some of the reviews for this book: depending on the reviewer's political persuasion, he or she seems to recommend or pan the book. Graham doesn't attempt to hide that she is a Democrat, but this shouldn't draw or repulse a potential reader. I encourage people to read this book because it is one of the most interesting, best-written books I have read this year. I read several hundred books each year, ranging from fluff to history to 'literature' to mystery. Mrs. Graham's autobiography is everything a good book should be - riveting, witty, and thought-provoking. It has enough gossip to rival a mass-audience novel, and yet manages to engage the reader completely. I was thrilled to live through the decades of the 20th Century with her and her family - they seem to have known or have been in some contact with everyone who was anyone. Most imporant, perhaps, is how frankly she discusses her relationship with her family and her struggle with her public persona. I appreciate the delicate balance she achieves with praising her husband while describing how she survived being married to a manic-depressive. Although no one could consider her political commentary in the book to be neutral, the sophisticated reader should be able to interpret the author's opinions as such. I don't have to agree with her to admire her, nor is it necessary for me to regard the book as objective to enjoy reading it.
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Summary: D.C.; a view inside the beltway before there was a beltway
Review: I revisited this autobiography after the unfortunate passing of Mrs. Graham. Her insights to government business and the media has served as an invaluable reference as I teach U.S. Government and AP Government and Politics to high school seniors. Her anecdotal stories served to make the story of her marriage to the Washington Post most interesting. Her story-telling style indicates a woman who might have been approachable, and in turn, insightful to the needs and wants of many of the folks who worked for the Post. However, there were two underlying themes that remind the reader that she was from another social strata. The first was her incessant name dropping and the fact that she was clueless to the dynamics of her marriage. I have only two criticisms: the name dropping and her acknowledgment of the fact that she had never ironed an article of clothing. Although it may be true, that is not something of which I would boast, or even admit.
Rating: 
Summary: Her mystique eludes me
Review: I'll have to take the word of nearly every pundit in America that Katharine Graham was one terrific gal, but I remain mystified as to what she actually achieved. In this interminable book, we are submitted to every tremor of inadequacy she ever felt, as she bathes in self-indulgent recollection. But what else is there once you get past the feelings, the many, many, feelings : (1) She was born rich. (2) Her husband went nuts, got himself a girlfriend and tried taking the Post away. In the midst of this struggle, he was released from an asylum, went with her to their vacation home, and was carted out in a body bag. She got the Post. (3) She and the Post were in bed, either figuratively or--she at least hints--literally, with Adlai Stevenson, JFK, and LBJ. (4) As a result, they gave the personal misdeeds of Democrat presidents a wink and a nod and supported Vietnam through the 60s. Then Nixon got elected and they published the Pentagon Papers and jumped on Watergate like a wolf on a lamb chop. (5) They then skated on their new reputation for the next thirty years as the upstart Washington Times, which is owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon for God's sake, scooped them left an right. (6) Meanwhile, and I'm particularly perplexed by why this doesn't bother more people, the Post supported Marion Barry as he drove Washington, DC into the ground, presumably because their reflexive liberalism made it impossible to criticize a black mayor. (7) There is one area where Graham and the Post did depart from the doctrinaire liberal line, and that was on unions. Of course, there was nothing noble about this; she just had to break the power of her own unionized employees in order to improve her company's bottom line. Maybe I'm just being willfully obscure--heck, that's almost certainly the case--but she appears to have been an amiable party hack who had her mediocre career handed to her on a silver platter. I realize that's the kind of charge that Democrats normally level against the Bushes, but at least George Bush and George W. had to run for office once in awhile. What did Katharine Graham ever do? Her mystique eludes me. GRADE : C-
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Summary: I couldn't put it down!
Review: From the opening page, I was hooked. Graham chronicles most of the 20th century from the unique perspective of her family and her own life. It was a life of privilege but not necessariy an easy one. The research that went into book was remarkable. Each paragraph reads like a diary entry of people, places and conversations. It is just gossipy enough to really be deliciously personal as well as very funny at times. She seems to have met every important person alive from 1930 forward and has fascinating relationships with many - including the many powerful men and women who shaped the course of history and the world we live in today. Graham became self aware enough to see her faults and strengths and her the book is a tribute to a woman who grew with her times and circumstances into an example for women and men alike. She is often brutally honest, but in a nice way, revealing her unique style of interacting with others. It was like reading a novel. It is dense, fascinating reading. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Pathfinder, Pioeer, Media Star
Review: What a life. Katharine Graham, late publisher and CEO of the Washington Post Company, recounts her extraordinary experiences with disarming and self-effacing charm. Born into a world of wealth and power, dominated first by formidable parents and then by a charismatic husband tormented by the demon of manic depression, she came into herself in middle age as she struggled to lead her family's company through some of the most turbulent and fascinating times in the country's history. Katharine Graham emerges as both a product and a reflection of those times. Many have defined her as a pioneering feminist, and that she was, though she came into feminist consciousness with tentative baby steps well into her tenure as a pioneering CEO of a major corporation. But feminism never defined Katharine Graham. In many ways she defined it as she reinvented herself again and again. In the process she came to understand the low grade oppression women suffer in even the most progressive society, but her raised consciousness was only one facet of her lifelong education. Her transformation from oppressed wife to CEO is a thrilling one, though it's the only part of the book that seems just a little disingenuous. Graham presents herself as a naif, unschooled in the way of boardrooms and balance sheets, as if she were called into the cockpit to fly a 747 before taking any flying lessons. The reality seems to be that the whole first part of her life, filled though it was the perquisites of a high born society matron and CEO's wife, was in fact a long preparation for her ultimate destiny as the leader of a venerable publication. Even if Katharine Graham inherited the paper as a birthright, her handling of her role was nothing less than heroic at times. Shepherding the paper through the 60's and 70's, and the upheavals of Vietnam, Watergate, and the labor unrest at the Washington Post itself, she made decisions on epic matters which were usually correct and always reponsible. At the end of her tenure, with a little help from her friend Warren Buffett, the paper had rewarded its patient stockholders with a runup undreamed of when she started. Among the book's many admirable qualities is Ms. Graham's writing style. It's straightforward and honest without betraying a hint of sanctimoniousness. From her rarefied position she brings the reader up to her level without patronizing. The way she tells her story, the thing that emerges from underneath all the power, glory, wealth, and adventure is one woman's class and decency.
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Summary: Like a guided tour of the last 80 years of American history
Review: This is a priceless book and you won't be able to put it down. Katharine Graham was alive and wealthy during the most exciting half of American history, and she shares her view from the front row with the reader. Graham didn't just experience the Kennedy asassination--she flew to the White House that evening, and rode around in LBJ's golf cart a few weeks later. She knows the skewed views her upbringing afforded her and she addresses that issue right away, with what can only be described as self-effacing humour. Her frankness about husband Phil Graham is admirable--if she held anything back in this book the reader can surmise the truth from her descriptions of their general relationship. This account has the quotations and exhaustive research of a text book, and you will not find a more charming guide. If only fiction could be as action-packed!
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Summary: Pygmalion on the Potomac
Review: There is a pivotal moment in Kay Graham's life story where, in the mid-1960s, she is guest of honor at a New York gala hosted by Truman Capote. Capote's friend, Sir Cecil Beaton, fresh from his success in My Fair Lady, insists that everyone be attired in black and white, just as in his designs for the famous Ascot scene in that film. The imagery is obvious: the transformation of a hitherto underestimated woman into a completely different being. While Graham mentions the ball, she is decidedly reticent about it, pointing out that she still doesn't know why they organized it. Her life before that was that of an affluent, but overlooked, rich girl, a younger daughter who married her father's favorite son-in-law. After said son-in-law (Phil Graham), longtime sufferer of manic depressive syndrome, committed suicide, Kay assumed control of the family jewel, the Washington Post, and became the most celebrated publisher/proprietor in recent times. I mention the ball scene (circa 1965) because it captures the element that makes this book work as a story: a woman's journey of self-reinvention. This, and Graham's self-deprecating modesty, keep "Personal History" from either becoming another "How I conquered world" business yarn or a Lifetime-movie novelization. Only one thing became irksome: while Graham was quite cutting and insightful about people she didn't like, and devastatingly frank when it came to her own foibles, she tended to rave uncritically about her extended circle of friends: hence while there are some delicious barbs about Nixon, there is only gushing praise for Kissinger or Reagan, both of whom cultivated a warm relationship with her. With royalty, it was once said, flattery should be applied with a trowel: evidently this approach bore fruit in Katharine's case.
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Summary: Don't Let This Book Get Stuck in any Wringer
Review: As an author with my debut novel in its initial release, I know a great story when I read one. Katharine Graham's memoir, PERSONAL HISTORY, is a great story. Mrs. Graham was one of the most influential women in contemporary America. She wasn't a rock star, an actress, a high fashion model, or even a wife of a powerful man. She achieved her position entirely on her own, and in PERSONAL HISTORY, she presents her life's story. Mrs. Graham was born to a family of wealth, made it to adulthood reasonably unscathed, married well (sort of), raised her chidlren, and then achieved true greatness as a widow. Upon the death of her husband, she took over THE WASHINGTON POST and transformed it into a major national newspaper. She became politically powerful and socially influential. She even had one presidential associate threaten to stick a portion of her anatomy into a wringer. PERSONAL HISTORY is a fascinating read by a fascinating woman. Katharine Graham is definitely a far better role model for today's girls than J-Lo, Madonna, Britney Spears, or even the Olsen Twins. Read this book, and then give it to your daughters.
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