Nicholas Miraculous: the amazing career of the Redoubtable Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler

The Story

The extraordinary accomplishments of a great educator and even greater self-promoter To those who loved him, like Teddy Roosevelt, he was 'Nicholas Miraculous,' the fabled educator who could do everything; to those who didn't, like Upton Sinclair, he was 'the intellectual leader of the American plutocracy,' a champion of 'false and cruel ideals.' Ezra Pound branded him 'one of the more loathsome figures' of the age. Celebrated and reviled around the world, Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University for forty-four years, was a dominant personality for half a century. In this engrossing biography, Michael Rosenthal explores the many ways in which this extraordinary character seized and wielded power.Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 while simultaneously president of Columbia University, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Butler imposed himself on America as did few others. Rosenthal's superbly researched, elegantly written narrative brings vividly to life the mania, narcissism, and genius that enabled 'Dr. Butler' to transform Columbia into New York's major research university and at the same time to become an internationally recognized institution himself. Rich in social, cultural, and political insight, Nicholas Miraculous illuminates Butler's prodigious career and the complex nature of the age that nourished him.