What makes a good political memoir?

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SEATTLE — This is a red-letter week for friends and enemies of Sarah Palin, Republican former vice-presidential candidate and newly minted author. With the help of a ghostwriter, Palin published a memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” on Tuesday. Late last week, thanks to pre-orders, “Going Rogue” was No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list. Palin’s fans will read this book for inspiration; her enemies will read it for strategy tips.

This got me thinking: Why do politicians write books? And: What makes a good political memoir? I went to a couple of local experts to find out.

Richard Young, a professor of political science at Seattle University, says some of the best political books come from people who work for politicians. Case in point: the flood of books by/about people who have worked for former President George W. Bush.

For an administration loath to disclose much to the press, these former members of same, mostly dedicated public servants who made key decisions and kept good records, now can’t shut up, to the delight of presidential scholars. “When you have 20 people all saying the same thing, you begin to get a clear picture of what was going on,” says Young. One of the best books: “The Price of Loyalty,” a chronicle of former Bush treasury secretary Paul O’Neill’s two years in the Bush administration, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind.

As for the “why write a book?” question, Palin clearly hopes “to cash in on her notoriety,” Young says. “Her story is amazing; a year and a half ago she was just an obscure Alaska politician. She’s going to make money; at the same time, she’s going to be justifying her past actions and framing her visions.”

William Woodward, a history professor at Seattle Pacific University, says that politicians with no further ax to grind can write splendid memoirs, such as:

The diaries of John Quincy Adams: From his 20s as a diplomat through his presidency to his death at age 81, Adams rose at 4 a.m. every morning, read his Bible, then wrote in his diary for an hour. He committed his “vitriolic thoughts on everybody he had to work with on both sides of the Atlantic,” Woodward says. “He wasn’t writing notes, he was writing for future readers.”

Henry Stimson’s memoir: Stimson, secretary of war under both the Taft and Franklin Roosevelt administrations, was a “modest man” who thought he was “a servant of the people.” Stinson dictated his memoir, “On Active Service in Peace and War,” to a young Harvard scholar, McGeorge Bundy, who would eventually serve as President John Kennedy’s national-security adviser.

Ulysses S. Grant’s memoir: Grant wrote “The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant” knowing he was dying of cancer. He had no estate — his goal was “to save his family ... the royalties were the only legacy to his family that he had.” He died five days after finishing the manuscript.