A Book Review of Herbert Hoover's, "Years of Adventure"
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Date Published: July 15, 2025
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A Review of Herbert Hoover's Memoir: "Years of Adventure"
- Reviews of the Day: 1951
- Selected Quotes from Herbert Hoover's “Years of Adventure”
- This Author’s Thoughts on Herbert Hoover's “Years of Adventure"
Reviews of the Day: 1951
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On August 27, 1951, The Des Moines Register published an editorial on Herbert Hoover's Memoirs from Collier’s Weekly and stated: “There is no statute of limitations that covers historical injustice, and injustice is a rather mild word for some of the efforts of those who have tried to make Mr. Hoover a political scapegoat … and persuade the American people that he was the author of the Great Depression. …
“His unceasing activities spanning the years of World War I, his Presidency, and World War II has brought him—in spite of the smears, an understanding and public esteem which perhaps have never been greater than they are today.” On October 16, 1951, The Moline Daily Dispatch published a review of “The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure” under the title “Herbert Hoover to Publish Memoirs” written by Fulton Lewis Jr. Mr. Lewis wrote of Herbert Hoover: “The nation’s security rests on the selection of an intelligent man with a sense of justice, deep faith and possessing the skill to redirect the destiny of a country. … We had a President with these qualities at one time. … He is Herbert Hoover, who belongs to the age of great builders. … “At least for the young in politics here is a guiding word from an American whose conduct in public life is free of taint or political cupidity, arrogance and ignorance.” |
View of the spines of Herbert Hoover's Memoirs.
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On October 17, 1951, The Kansas City Star published H. J. Haskell's review of Herbert Hoover’s Memoirs: The First Volume, “Years of Adventure.” Mr. Haskell wrote: “Mr. Hoover has a thrilling story to tell and he tells it well. … Two important characteristics of Hoover emerge in these memoirs. The first is his brilliance as a [worldwide] engineer. … The Hoover concern became the largest international engineering organization in the world … by the time he was forty. … The second characteristic of Hoover brought out in the book is his strong feeling against American entanglement in foreign affairs. …
“It is evident that his experiences abroad before the first World War impressed upon him basic differences between American and European thinking. These differences came still more acutely to his attention while he was trying to save first Belgium during the war and then Europe, especially our former enemies, from starvation during the peace conference [a period of several months]. Incidents he cites show how the iron had entered into his soul. …
“When the treaty with Germany was finally written Hoover was intensely disappointed. He felt it was a treaty of revenge not of reconciliation, and it contained the seeds of a future war [World War II]. …
“This is a volume that is hard to lay down.”
On October 21, 1951, Jameson G. Champaigne published his review of Herbert Hoover’s “Years of Adventure” in The Indianapolis Star in an article entitled “Hoover’s Memoirs Reveal the Man.” He wrote: “Few men in American public life have been slandered, lampooned, vilified and smeared as was Herbert Hoover in the 1930’s. His great services were forgotten by a distraught people. His devotion to others, his unusual personal sacrifices for others, his relief work, his wise counsel and grave warnings were all ignored for a time.
“But Americans who read these personal memoirs of Hoover’s life will soon forget the sneers and the smears and remember only the real Herbert Hoover; a great man, a great American who still serves his sturdy Quaker faith and his inspiring American ideals with unselfish devotion to his fellow men.”
“It is evident that his experiences abroad before the first World War impressed upon him basic differences between American and European thinking. These differences came still more acutely to his attention while he was trying to save first Belgium during the war and then Europe, especially our former enemies, from starvation during the peace conference [a period of several months]. Incidents he cites show how the iron had entered into his soul. …
“When the treaty with Germany was finally written Hoover was intensely disappointed. He felt it was a treaty of revenge not of reconciliation, and it contained the seeds of a future war [World War II]. …
“This is a volume that is hard to lay down.”
On October 21, 1951, Jameson G. Champaigne published his review of Herbert Hoover’s “Years of Adventure” in The Indianapolis Star in an article entitled “Hoover’s Memoirs Reveal the Man.” He wrote: “Few men in American public life have been slandered, lampooned, vilified and smeared as was Herbert Hoover in the 1930’s. His great services were forgotten by a distraught people. His devotion to others, his unusual personal sacrifices for others, his relief work, his wise counsel and grave warnings were all ignored for a time.
“But Americans who read these personal memoirs of Hoover’s life will soon forget the sneers and the smears and remember only the real Herbert Hoover; a great man, a great American who still serves his sturdy Quaker faith and his inspiring American ideals with unselfish devotion to his fellow men.”
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On October 28, 1951, Leon F. Sensabaugh of Birmingham-Southern College published his review of Herbert Hoover’s “Years of Adventure” in The Birmingham News in an article entitled “Hoover’s Memoirs Deal Mainly with Efforts to Aid Europe in World War I.”
Mr. Sensabaugh wrote in his review: “The years which Mr. Hoover covers [in “Years of Adventure”] are the less disputatious ones of the ex-president’s life; they are the years about which there will be little disagreement concerning his contributions. … “Mr. Hoover records these accomplishments in a modest, matter-of-fact way. There is little sparkle to his memoirs but they serve admirably as proof of his remarkable accomplishments.” On November 21, 1951, The Daily News carried Ed Sullivan’s article “Little Old New York” in which he offered his insights gained from reading “The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure.” Ed Sullivan wrote of Herbert Hoover's Memoirs: “I’m convinced that Herbert Hoover, as President, was the victim of the worst public relations job ever botched up by his party. … I read his memoirs and have never enjoyed a biography so much. … |
The Memoir of Hoover entitled "Years of Adventure” was released August, 1951.
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“When you read of the shocking corruption in the government [today], one wonders what this prize crew of thieves would have done had they been given almost a billion dollars for Belgian relief. None of it stuck to Hoover’s fingers. … If he hadn’t been smeared, Americans would have instantly expressed the affection which they delayed until the last few years. …
“This reporter certainly had Herbert Hoover pegged wrong.”
“This reporter certainly had Herbert Hoover pegged wrong.”
Selected Quotes from Herbert Hoover's “Years of Adventure"
- Should Woodrow Wilson Have Gone to the Armistice Talks?
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“I [Herbert Hoover] was one of the few men around President Wilson in Washington who had replied adversely to his inquiry for opinion on whether he should go to Europe and personally lead the American delegation.
"Colonel House, who had experienced the intimate picture of Europe also advised against going as did Secretary Lansing and Bernard Baruch. Without knowing each other's views, we had all counselled that from the thunderous and free pulpit of the White House he could be far more effective. … “Woodrow Wilson, however, believed, and continued to believe, that he could bring a ‘new order’ from the New to the Old World. The words ‘new order,’ ‘justice,’ ‘right,’ ‘reason’ were constantly upon his lips. … Mr. Wilson, though, had little knowledge of the men he would need to deal with and the forces which controlled them. "Woodrow Wilson was a gentleman, and when he became tied in the confidences of personal discussion his public voice was stilled.” |
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- Herbert Hoover’s Perspective on the European Food Blockade
“To lower the morale of the enemy by reducing his food supply was one of the major strategies of the war. I did not myself believe in the food blockade. I did not believe that it was the effective weapon of which the Allies were so confident. I did not believe in starving women and children. And above all, I did not believe that stunted bodies and deformed minds in the next generation were secure foundations upon which to rebuild civilization.
“The facts were that soldiers, government officials, munitions workers and farmers in enemy countries would always be fed; that the impact of a blockade was upon the weak and the women and children.”
“The facts were that soldiers, government officials, munitions workers and farmers in enemy countries would always be fed; that the impact of a blockade was upon the weak and the women and children.”
- British Troops’ Empathy Helped End the German Food Blockade After the Armistice
“On the 7th of March Mr. Lloyd George asked me to call. With him was General Plumer, Commander of the British Occupation Army in Germany. General Plumer was in a rare state of emotion for a Briton. He announced to me in tragic tones that Germany must have food.
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“That was no news to me [Hoover had been fighting for months to get the food blockade dropped on all nations]. What the General said, however, was helpful. He said that the rank and file of his army was sick and discontented and wanted to go home because they just could not stand the sight of hordes of skinny and bloated children pawing over the offal—decomposing animal flesh, refuse and entrails, from the British cantonments.
“His soldiers were actually depriving themselves to feed these kids. … After Plumer left, Lloyd George demanded to know why I did not send in food. … I turned on a torrent of expressions as to British and French officials that he ought to remember even in his grave. … “I reviewed the British and French lack of cooperation since I had arrived in Europe and their universal sabotage and attempts to ruin our farmers, and made it about as clear as words could convey it. I pointed out that the British Navy was preventing the Germans from even fishing in the Baltic, which they had used as a food source before the Armistice. I stated the ultimate effect in history and the immediate future, and I reviewed the grasping and trickster attitudes of his British minions—whom I named as well as the French officials engaged in obstruction. “Lloyd George was an overworked but reasonable man. His tone and attitude changed entirely. … He presented the situation to the ‘Big Four.’ … When the door for food to Germany opened, I quickly found hate so livid on the Allied side … as to force me to issue a statement justifying my actions.”
Read the sidebar! |
“Why We Are Feeding the Germans” by Herbert Hoover
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- The Children of Poland Show Their Thanks to Herbert Hoover for Helping Feed Them
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“The most profoundly touching incident was my reception at Warsaw by the children. They had been brought in from the soup kitchens in trainloads—50,000 of them. They were organized into a march in front of an old race-course grandstand.
“Ranging from five up to twelve years, clad often in rags, each carried a paper banner of American and Polish colors. Some also brought banners with inscriptions addressed to me. They came by for hours—chattering, laughing, squealing, trying vainly to look sober and to maintain some sort of marching order. “General Henrys, the head of the French Military Mission, stood near me with tears coursing down his face until finally, overcome, he left the stand. He said in parting, ‘There has never been a review of honor in all history which I would prefer for myself to that which has been given you today!’ “At one moment a rabbit jumped out of the grass and tried to run through the line of marching children. That was too much for live kids. They fell upon him in a mob of two thousand or more. The frantic efforts of the women supervisors to restore the line gave a touch of relief which we all needed. Once captured, they insisted upon bringing the rabbit to me.” |
Select to read the review of Herbert Hoover's "The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson."
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This Author’s Thoughts on Herbert Hoover's “Years of Adventure”
After reading multiple of Hoover’s books and now, this first volume of “The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure,” this author would agree with the insight that Ed Sullivan offered in his review about the 31st President of the United States: “This reporter certainly had Herbert Hoover pegged wrong.”
I would modify this statement to read that “History certainly seems to have Herbert Hoover pegged wrong.” It seems we live in an age where ignorance and arrogance—two characteristics Hoover fails to display in any of his writings, love reinforcing each other in all-encompassing generalizations about individuals. The ignorant, disingenuous or deceivers avoid facts rather than focusing on facts discovered through researching, reading, observing and thinking before writing about individuals.
I would modify this statement to read that “History certainly seems to have Herbert Hoover pegged wrong.” It seems we live in an age where ignorance and arrogance—two characteristics Hoover fails to display in any of his writings, love reinforcing each other in all-encompassing generalizations about individuals. The ignorant, disingenuous or deceivers avoid facts rather than focusing on facts discovered through researching, reading, observing and thinking before writing about individuals.
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As Hoover writes in the preface of this work: Myths sometimes good and sometimes not appear as to all persons who enter public life. Whether the myths are good or bad, they do not contribute to the store of truth. So these memoirs were written to address the “myths” of his public life and to try and contribute more to our “storage of truth.”
If you want to understand Herbert Hoover better, start with a study of this “Years of Adventure!” Although it begins with some biographical insight into the man, it focuses mostly on his work building the largest engineering concern in the world, his travels overseas—with his wife and children by his side most of the time, which included being in the middle of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion, visiting and working in countries so innumerable as to require the sidebar above to list them over just a seven year period, and a dedicated effort of a lifetime to saving the people—especially the children, of the European nations during and after World War I [and to come later—in another volume, World War II]. In particular, I appreciate this observation he made of the Chinese people after spending three years there [1899–1901] which included “two trips around the globe” … and circling the globe overall “five times” as the head of an international engineering firm: |
Herbert Hoover’s travels as head of an international engineering firm.
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However vivid one’s experiences may be and the light thrown upon the [Chinese] government or the [Chinese] people, no one man can appraise or make arbitrary judgments on a race of 400,000,000 people who have 3,000 years of written history.
The impression I have held of the Chinese people is one of abiding admiration.
Ninety per cent of the huge mass live so close to the starvation line that someone falls below it in nearly every village every year. Yet they live with patience, with tolerance. They have the deepest fidelity to family ties, and the fullest affection for their children. They work harder and more hours than any other race in the world. True, they are superstitious beyond belief, but they have a vivid sense of humor, and they arc courageous.
High-quality, black-and-white pictures of Herbert Hoover's Relief Administration feeding children in "soup kitchens" that provided necessary minerals and fats in Finland, Poland, Vienna and Russia.
The following biographical information I have not seen elsewhere in Herbert Hoover’s other works. His father died when he was six. His mother died just two years later of pneumonia when he was eight.
As I have noted in so many of my other reviews of the great individuals of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, many of them grew up with only one parent—usually the mother, as the father all-to-frequently died from the strenuous physical labor in the times before the advent and mass utilization of water, wind and electrical power which enhanced and, at times, replaced “man-power” for a better world for everyone.
Orphaned within a Quaker community, he still had caring relatives and those in the religious community who assisted him. He graduated from Stanford in California soon after it opened with a degree in engineering which he puts to immediate use.
As I have noted in so many of my other reviews of the great individuals of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, many of them grew up with only one parent—usually the mother, as the father all-to-frequently died from the strenuous physical labor in the times before the advent and mass utilization of water, wind and electrical power which enhanced and, at times, replaced “man-power” for a better world for everyone.
Orphaned within a Quaker community, he still had caring relatives and those in the religious community who assisted him. He graduated from Stanford in California soon after it opened with a degree in engineering which he puts to immediate use.
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In this book I highly recommend the following sections: “Engineering in Australia,” “Engineering in China,” “Engineering Over the World,” “The Belgian Relief: 1914-20,” “The U. S. Food Administration: 1917-19,” and, finally, “The Relief and Reconstruction of Europe: 1918-20.”
Some of the excerpts shared above in this review will serve to recommend these chapters and this book overall. Good Reading! Cheers, - Peter E. |
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