The son of an oil magnate who became a four-term governor, Nelson Rockefeller sought the presidency three times—representing the bygone breed of liberal republicans—but had to settle for two unfulfilling years as Gerald Ford's vice president. A frustrated architect turned master builder, an avid collector of art and an unabashed ladies' man, "Rocky" promoted fallout shelters and affordable housing with equal enthusiasm. Named a Best Book of the Year by Booklist, The Boston Globe, and Kirkus Reviews, Richard Norton Smith's biography also details how Rockefeller's battles with New York City mayor John Lindsay, his son's unsolved disappearance, and the scandalous circumstances of his death.

"[An] enthralling biography.... Richard Norton Smith has written what will probably stand as a definitive Life.... On His Own Terms succeeds as an absorbing, deeply informative portrait of an important, complicated, semi-heroic figure who, in his approach to the limits of government and to government's relation to the governed, belonged in every sense to another century."—The New Yorker