The Colonel - The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955

This is the acclaimed biography of a giant of American journalism. As editor-publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Robert R. McCormick came to personify his city. Drawing on McCormick's personal papers and years of research, Richard Norton Smith has written the definitive life of the towering figure known as The Colonel.

"Richard Norton Smith is a delightful writer, and The Colonel sparkles from start to finish. This is a terrific book, full of insight and surprise, often funny, consistently fair, and as brimming with life as its Chicago setting. Readers are in for a grand time." --David McCullough, author of John Adams

"Richard Norton Smith is everything The Colonel wasn't--judicious, clear-headed, and historically accurate. For all these virtues he's still managed to produce a biography that wonderfully captures his eccentric, pigheaded, impossible (and sometimes even likeable) subject. The Colonel is as big as all Chicago--a fresh, informative, and hugely entertaining book." --Thomas Mallon

"The best book ever written about the press." --Hilton Kramer