This book was easy to follow, but there was not much new information. This might be good for someone with a casual interest in Presidental history. This echoes many of the key points of other recent George HW Bush biographies.

Texas Titans is a wonderfully written book about the friendship of President George H.W. Bush and James Baker. It is a refreshing read during our current times. I learned many interesting facts about President Bush.

Thank you Cambridge Klein Publishers, NetGalley and Charles Denyer for the ARC of Texas Titans for my free review of the book. I really enjoyed reading about President George H.W. Bush and James A. Baker, III, their friendship and how they helped shaped the U.S. This books shows us how people can work together instead of working against those who don't always agree with you. GREAT READ!

I consider myself to be a great fan of George H.W. Bush- I think his humility, fair-mindedness, and grace are qualities that leaders today could use a good dose of. Reading much about Bush, I have encountered James Baker, but really did not have much background on him. This book is a great introduction to both men, showing how they rose from their beginnings outside politics to have a large role in the shape of the nation.

This is an easy and accessible read if one is looking for insights into President Bush's history. However, it strongly echoes many of the recent biographies, including the one written by his son. Those who read that book really will not uncover anything new in Denyer's book. But for a place to begin with Baker, who is slowly starting to get more academic attention, this is a great introduction. The book's introduction makes the case that they should be looked at as a force that is greater than the sum of its parts, but the book doesn't follow. In some instance there is overlapping and a synthesis of these two men's lives, but as a whole, Denyer switches back and forth between focusing on Bush and then on Baker. To be clear, this isn't a book on their relationship. It is certainly written about in some areas, but I don't think it comes across as a melding of the two men. There are far more instances of sections and chapters separated out by each man's history. This makes it easy for the beginning reader to build and see each man's importance in his own respect.

My only major criticism is Denyer's chapter on the 2000 election. In casting Baker as loyal and politically saavy, he discusses his role in helping secure Bush's victory. This argument works if politics is viewed as shrewd and Machiavellian, but does not help Baker's image to push it as a noble win. I think great biographies are very clear when someone acts in a morally questionable way. Denyer, it seems, feels the need to write about Baker's involvement in 2000 from a positive standpoint because Baker not doing so would not align with the person he has portrayed in previous pages. Again, if politics is a game about power and tactics, rather than a means of representing the people in a democratic republic, then this portrayal of Baker works. However, it is deeply unsettling to consider politics this way and I think readers would implicitly question the portrayal.

I have not read other books by Denyer, so I cannot comment if these views on Bush and Baker align with his view of politics and history in those other works. He definitely does a nice job exploring their rise into politics and how they developed their own ideas, something I think that will interest most of his readers.

Charles Denyer's account of the interaction and decades-long friendship of two prodigious political figures of the Twentieth Century reaches masterpiece level. The era of George H.W. Bush's presidency is related incident by incident, and Bush comes alive as one of the most gracious and well-intentioned presidents to serve the country. His friendship and collaboration with the highly -skilled James Bakers undoubtedly worked toward the successes of the Bush presidency. This amazing double-biography recreates the characters of two giants of politics as a tasty, not "dry" historical read!

With the recent book I've read about James A. Baker, I became fascinated with the man who was behind many of the Republican greats. I have worked in conservative politics for over six years and hasn't heard the name. I was happy when that changed and I learned more. This book was a deep dive into Baker's relationship with George H. W. Bush. Charles Denyer starts at the beginning and it plays out in descriptive lore that any can appreciate it. It is the untold story of two Texas Titans painting the country red.

"it's fair to say that no president in modern times, certainly since the end of World War II, has been confronted with the tidal wave of cataclysmic events that Bush faced." This is not fair to say, at least without some argument as to why the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and other genuine cataclysms are given short shrift.

Overall, the author seems to have a worshipful view of his two subjects. I am not opposed to positivity, but as in the passage above, it would have more credibility if it seemed to derive from a more thorough consideration of history. As a major biography of Baker is just coming out (The Many Who Ran Washington) and Bush received one recently (Destiny and Power), this book faces a high hurdle toward receiving wide public attention.