Taylor, John M. 1930–

(Richard C. Allen, John Maxwell Taylor)

PERSONAL:

Born May 3, 1930, in West Point, NY; son of Maxwell D. (a U.S. Army general) and Lydia Taylor; married Priscilla Mary Sheppard, July 6, 1957; children: Alice Spaulding, Katharine Maxwell, James Sheppard. Education: Williams College, B.A. (with honors in history), 1952; George Washington University, M.A., 1954.

ADDRESSES:

Home—McLean, VA.

CAREER:

Served with Central Intelligence Agency prior to 1964; U.S. Department of State, deputy planning adviser for Bureau of East Asian Affairs, 1964-66, political officer with American Embassy, Singapore, 1966-68, and with American Embassy, Rangoon, 1968-70; Export-Import Bank of the United States, Washington, DC, 1970-80; Office of Estimates, Defense Intelligence Agency, 1980-87.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Ohioana Book Award, Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana Library Association, 1972, for Garfield of Ohio; Manuscript Society fellow.

WRITINGS:

(Under pseudonym Richard C. Allen) Korea's Syngman Rhee: An Unauthorized Portrait, Tuttle (Rutland, VT), 1960.

From the White House Inkwell: American Presidential Autographs, Tuttle (Rutland, VT), 1968, Modoc Press (Santa Monica, CA), 1989.

Garfield of Ohio, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1970, American Political Biography Press (Newtown, CT), 2005.

(Foreword by Lewis F. Powell, Jr.) General Maxwell Taylor: The Sword and the Pen, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989, published as An American Solider: The Wars of General Maxwell Taylor, Presidio Press (Novato, CA), 2001.

(Editor) The Autograph Collector's Checklist, Manuscript Society (Burbank, CA), 1990.

William Henry Seward: Lincoln's Right Hand, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1991.

Confederate Raider: Raphael Semmes of the Alabama, Brassey's (Washington, DC), 1994.

(Foreword by John D. Haskell) History in your Hand: Fifty Years of the Manuscript Society, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1997.

While Cannons Roared: The Civil War behind the Lines, Brassey's (Washington, DC), 1997.

(With William N. Still, Jr., and Norman C. Delaney) Raiders and Blockaders: The American Civil War Afloat, Brassey's (Washington, DC), 1998.

(Foreword by Rod Paschall) Duty Faithfully Performed: Robert E. Lee and His Critics, Brassey's (Dulles, VA), 1999.

(Editor, with Priscilla S. Taylor) Dictionary of Military Terms: A Guide to the Language of Warfare and Military Institutions, second edition, H.W. Wilson (Bronx, NY), 2003.

Semmes: Rebel Raider, Brassey's (Washington, DC), 2004.

Contributor to Military History Quarterly, Washington Times, and historical journals. Contributing editor, Manuscripts (magazine).

SIDELIGHTS:

John M. Taylor has established a reputation as, in the words of Booklist contributor Roland Green, a writer of "sound, literate, accessible biography." Taylor's subjects include James A. Garfield, twentieth president of the United States; William Henry Seward, secretary of state under President Abraham Lincoln; and General Maxwell D. Taylor, the author's father, who resigned his post as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's army chief of staff because of his disagreement with the administration's nuclear policy and was later appointed as chair of the joint chiefs of staff under President John F. Kennedy.

Taylor's biography of Confederate Army leader General Robert E. Lee, Duty Faithfully Performed: Robert E. Lee and His Critics, was seen by many critics as an ambitious and balanced account of a complex figure. Historian contributor Michael Palmer noted that Taylor "systematically discounts the work of Lee's critics and concludes that ‘Robert E. Lee was the ablest commander of the Civil War and perhaps the greatest to come out of North America,’" but also pointed out Taylor identifies and discusses "Lee's sins of omission and commission." Emory M. Thomas, writing in Journal of Southern History, expressed agreement with Taylor's sympathetic portrait of Lee but concluded that Duty Faithfully Performed does not engage sufficiently with the body of academic criticism on its subject. Green, however, praised the book as a solidly, lucid, and "refreshingly different" account of a brilliant but troubled man.

Taylor writes about a lesser-known figure from Civil War-era history in Confederate Raider: Raphael Semmes of the Alabama. Semmes was a U.S. naval officer who resigned his commission when his adopted state of Alabama seceded from the Union, and signed on with the Confederate Navy. He engaged in commercial raiding, a practice little different from piracy: in the Caribbean, he captured American commercial vessels, brought them to a neutral port, and demanded a ransom from their owners; when the ransoms were not paid, he destroyed the ships. Semmes captured eighteen U.S. ships as commander of the CSS Sumter, and another sixty-four as commander of the CSS Alabama, but his career came to an end after his rash decision to engage John Winslow, captain of the USS Kearsarge, in battle near Cherbourg, France, in 1864 ended in his defeat.

A shorter version of this book was published as Semmes: Rebel Raider. Humanities and Social Science Online contributor William H. Roberts considered this shorter book a "sound factual overview" of Semmes's life and career. While the book "does not penetrate as deeply into Semmes's personality as … expected," wrote Roberts, "it is a highly readable introduction to the man and his career that fully substantiates Taylor's assessment that Semmes was ‘not the first commerce raider of the nineteenth century; he was simply the best.’"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

AB Bookman's Weekly, May 13, 1991, review of The Autograph Collector's Checklist, p. 2000; May 11, 1998, "History in Your Hand," p. 1289.

Antiques and Collecting Hobbies, September, 1989, review of From the White House Inkwell: American Presidential Autographs; February, 1991, review of The Autograph Collector's Checklist, p. 31.

Armed Forces and Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal, fall, 1992, Irwin Goldberg, review of General Maxwell Taylor: The Sword and the Pen, p. 155.

Best Sellers, October 1, 1970, review of Garfield of Ohio, p. 254.

Biography, March 22, 2003, Michael Palmer, review of Duty Faithfully Performed: Robert E. Lee and His Critics, p. 368.

Booklist, January 15, 1969, review of From the White House Inkwell: American Presidential Autographs, p. 510; June 15, 1989, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 1760; September, 1, 1991, review of William Henry Seward: Lincoln's Right Hand, p. 38; October 1, 1994, Roland Green, review of Confederate Raider: Raphael Semmes of the Alabama, p. 235; September 1, 1999, Roland Green, review of Duty Faithfully Performed, p. 66.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, January, 1971, review of Garfield of Ohio, p. 1574.

Christian Science Monitor, August 30, 1991, Christine L. Compston, review of William Henry Seward, p. 12.

Foreign Affairs, fall, 1989, Lucy Edwards Despard and Gregory F. Treverton, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 201.

Historian, winter, 2002, Michael Palmer, review of Duty Faithfully Performed, p. 478.

Hobbies, October, 1969, review of From the White House Inkwell, p. 138.

Journal of American History, September, 1992, Adrian Cook, review of William Henry Seward, p. 666.

Journal of Military History, July, 1995, Raimondo Luraghi, review of Confederate Raider, p. 533; October, 2005, Spencer C. Tucker, review of Semmes: Rebel Raider, p. 1220.

Journal of Southern History, November, 1993, John Niven, review of William Henry Seward, p. 762; May 1, 2001, Emory M. Thomas, review of Duty Faithfully Performed, p. 469.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1970, review of Garfield of Ohio, p. 734; May 1, 1989, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 682; June 1, 1991, review of William Henry Seward, p. 721; August 1, 1999, review of Duty Faithfully Performed, p. 1213.

Library Journal, September, 1, 1970, review of Garfield of Ohio, p. 2794; June 1, 1989, Dennis E. Showalter, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 118; September 1, 1999, Grant A. Fredericksen, review of Duty Faithfully Performed, p. 206.

Military Review, January 1, 2006, D. Jonathan White, review of Semmes.

Naval War College Review, winter, 1996, review of Confederate Raider, p. 155; fall, 2000, Wayne J. Rowe, review of Raiders & Blockaders: The American Civil War Afloat & USS New Ironsides in the Civil War, p. 173.

New Yorker, August 26, 1991, review of William Henry Seward, p. 80.

New York Times, September 4, 1991, Herbert Mitgang, review of William Henry Seward, p. B2.

New York Times Book Review, June 25, 1989, Stephen Karnow, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 13.

Parameters, December, 1989, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 115.

Publishers Weekly, July 20, 1970; review of Garfield of Ohio, p. 65; May 5, 1989, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 59; June 14, 1991, review of William Henry Seward, p. 48; August 25, 1997, review of While the Cannons Roared, p. 62.

Reference & Research News, February, 1995, review of Confederate Raider, p. 12; February, 1998, "History in Your Hand," p. 169; February, 2000, review of Duty Faithfully Performed, p. 42; February, 2004, review of Semmes, p. 59.

RQ, winter, 1969, review of From the White House Inkwell, p. 146.

Stamps, February 24, 1991, Herman Herst, Jr., review of From the White House Inkwell, p. 265.

Washington Post Book World, July 2, 1989, review of General Maxwell Taylor, p. 7; September 29, 1991, review of William Henry Seward. p. 13.

ONLINE

Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (June 11, 2008), William H. Roberts, review of Semmes.