Anyone interested in the footnotes and fanciful tales of American history will be in for a treat with Joshua Kendall's compulsively readable American Obsessives. Kendall is a bit of an obsessive himself, having written about the creation of Roget's thesaurus (The Man Who Made Lists) and a biography of dictionary creator Noah Webster (The Forgotten Founding Father). Here, he writes about men and women whose obsessive-compulsive tendencies, he argues, helped shape the nation, from Thomas Jefferson to Estee Lauder--exploring the connection between eccentricity and achievement.
Each chapter highlights an American luminary, touching on their odd behaviors, weaknesses and triumphs. Henry Heinz, of ketchup fame, became the country's foremost marketer, all the while lashing out at his family for not working hard enough. "An embittered Heinz would no longer consider giving upper management positions to anyone outside the family," Kendall writes; "even so, he wouldn't make peace with either of his titular bosses, his brother John and cousin Frederick." Controlling, passionate and hardworking to the point of breaking, the people Kendall focuses on have their eyes on the prize with no thought for the collateral damage--like Charles Lindbergh, who made his wife account for all household expenditures in detailed ledgers, or baseball great Ted Williams, who practiced on his swing and not his social skills.
As a whole, America's Obsessives falls short on the psychological discussion that would that prove that Kendall's subjects' behaviors (many negative) genuinely contributed to their nation-building legacies. All in all, however, this is a highly entertaining romp through our history. --Jonathan Shipley, freelance writer