Roger Bishop

NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

How a great society became law

Review by Roger Bishop

The civil rights laws and social programs initiated by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the mid-1960s transformed U.S. society. Although they were highly controversial at the time, laws establishing Medicare and Medicaid, public broadcasting, help to those in poverty, consumer and environmental protection, the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and many other programs remain in place today. Though President John F. Kennedy introduced civil rights legislation shortly before his death, it was his successor, Johnson, who was able to get the legislation passed and move on to other aspects of what became known as the Great Society. Most of the credit for the achievements has gone to Johnson, who is lauded for his vision and the “political magic” he perfected as majority leader in the Senate. Historian Julian E. Zelizer acknowledges that LBJ‘s political acumen was essential to the legislative successes, but his enlightening new book, The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society, offers a brilliantly documented and nuanced look at the many other people and factors that led to the passing of the Great Society legislation. The title of the book is taken from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963: “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.”

The author deftly explores two myths that have often distorted the history of the period. The first is that the 1960s was the apex of American liberalism. It was not. Even in the 1930s, New Deal legislation was compromised as Congress was dominated by a coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans who rejected liberalism. This continued to be the case going forward. The major difference in 1964-65 was the makeup of Congress that included, for a very short period, huge liberal majorities and bipartisan cooperation. In 1966, LBJ noted, “I am willing to let any objective historian look at my record. . . . FDR passed five major bills in the first 100 days. We passed 200 in the last two years. It is unbelievable.”

The second myth concerns Johnson’s use of presidential power. As president, he had to rely on legislators to do much of the work he used to do himself. LBJ once said, “The only power I’ve got is nuclear . . . and I can’t use that.” Despite his carefully planned strategy with Congressional leaders, at times even LBJ was surprised at developments in Congress. Another part of the picture is the decision he made in 1964-65 to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He felt that a liberal Democratic president had to be a hawk on foreign policy to be successful. But eventually he was caught between liberals who supported his domestic policies but opposed the war and conservatives who did not like his domestic policies while at the same time felt he was not doing enough to defeat communism abroad. Protests against the war and a budget crisis made it clear that the nation could not have both guns and butter.

Zelizer’s authoritative account of the era’s political landscape never slows down. It is particularly strong as he writes of the debates and strategic and tactical maneuvers by the administration and legislators of both parties. His portraits of powerful political players such as Howard Smith of Virginia and Carl Perkins of Kentucky in the House and James Eastland of Mississippi and Everett Dirksen in the Senate are vivid and insightful. Johnson benefited greatly from public pressure that led to passage of the 1964 civil rights bill and election victories in the fall. His years in Congress had taught him that when you have power, the best move is to maximize your advantages. On the day after he was elected in 1964, Johnson was on the phone helping to make sure that the Democrats took every possible step to capitalize on their election victories.

Anyone who wants to understand how the Great Society legislation came to be and why the heart of it remains intact will want to read this important book.

The civil rights laws and social programs initiated by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the mid-1960s transformed U.S. society. Although they were highly controversial at the time, laws establishing Medicare and Medicaid, public broadcasting, help to those in poverty, consumer and environmental protection, the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and many other programs remain in place today. Though President John F. Kennedy introduced civil rights legislation shortly before his death, it was his successor, Johnson, who was able to get the legislation passed and move on to other aspects of what became known as the Great Society.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

48 hours in JFK’s presidency

Review by Roger Bishop

On two consecutive days—Monday, June 10, and Tuesday, June 11, 1963—President John F. Kennedy gave two speeches that led to what many regard as the most significant achievements of his presidency, one in diplomacy and the other in civil rights. Both speeches were unprecedented and politically risky.

Kennedy’s commencement address at American University on June 10 led to the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the first of its kind. The next day, JFK made a nationally televised speech on civil rights. Some would call it the single most important day in the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act passed the next year, with Lyndon Johnson as president.

Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Andrew Cohen’s Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours that Made History tracks the president’s activities during this short period. Cohen explores the context of the speeches and how they came to be, and shows what else was on the president’s plate.

In what is often called the “Peace Speech,” JFK called for Americans to re-examine the Cold War and relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. President Nikita Khrushchev had the speech broadcast throughout his country and said Kennedy’s remarks were the reason he agreed to negotiations and the final treaty.

The speech on Tuesday had a much different history. Earlier that day, representatives of the Justice Department confronted Governor George Wallace of Alabama as he attempted to keep two African-American students from enrolling at the University of Alabama. Kennedy decided to speak to the nation that night, although only one of his closest advisors, his brother Robert Kennedy, agreed with him. Speechwriter Theodore Sorensen had only about two hours to prepare for the telecast.

The two speeches ultimately changed the course of history. In this important book, Cohen brings it all alive and makes us feel that we are there behind the scenes to see history in the making.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

On two consecutive days—Monday, June 10, and Tuesday, June 11, 1963—President John F. Kennedy gave two speeches that led to what many regard as the most significant achievements of his presidency, one in diplomacy and the other in civil rights. Both speeches were unprecedented and politically risky.
NonfictionHistory

Behind the scenes in D.C.

Review by Roger Bishop

During the years after World War II, a group of ambitious, idealistic, affluent and well-connected young people settled in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. Until at least 1975, their strong influence was felt, for good or ill, in virtually every aspect of government, especially foreign policy decisions, and in shaping public opinion on such issues as the founding of NATO, the military and covert actions of the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis and the war in Vietnam.

Historian Gregg Herken takes us inside this world in his meticulously researched and compellingly written The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington. At the center of the narrative is political and foreign affairs columnist Joseph Alsop, whose Sunday night supper parties became a Georgetown tradition. Vigorous discussions of issues dominated these gatherings. The guest list was nonpartisan and usually included members of Congress, foreign ambassadors, administration officials and, of course, Alsop’s well-connected friends and neighbors. These neighbors included Katharine and Phil Graham, publishers of The Washington Post; Frank Wisner and Allen Dulles, both deeply involved in covert activity; and diplomats Charles “Chip” Bohlen, David Bruce and Llewellyn Thompson. It was understood that any information from these gatherings could be used by Joe Alsop and his brother, Stewart, in their reporting. But it worked both ways: If a guest wished to leak information to the press, it was the perfect place to do so.

Senator John Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, were neighbors and occasional Alsop dinner guests. After the official events of JFK’s inauguration were over, the new president went to the Alsop home, without notifying the owner beforehand, where he stayed for two hours. When the Cuban missile crisis was developing, JFK went to a private party at the columnist’s home and stunned the host by confiding that there might be a nuclear war in the next five to 10 years. During the Watergate hearings, Alsop’s home became a kind of refuge for Henry Kissinger, who was having dinner there when President Nixon reached him by phone to give him advance word of his plans to resign. After Watergate, the Georgetown dinner party lost much of its drawing power.

Some of the people in this book have written their own memoirs or been the subjects of books by other writers. Herken works through this material to give us a balanced view of the mark they left on history. This compulsively readable group portrait of movers and shakers shows how major government decisions were influenced by an elite few during a dynamic period of national and world events.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

During the years after World War II, a group of ambitious, idealistic, affluent and well-connected young people settled in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. Until at least 1975, their strong influence was felt, for good or ill, in virtually every aspect of government, especially foreign policy decisions, and in shaping public opinion on such issues as the founding of NATO, the military and covert actions of the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis and the war in Vietnam.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

How Lincoln fought the battle for public opinion

Review by Roger Bishop

In mid-19th-century America, newspapers were the primary sources of information and opinion. Most newspaper publishers and editors were closely aligned with politicians and, with few exceptions, opinions were emphasized more than news and loyalty to political parties more than the public interest. It was a time of significant change for the newspaper industry with technological innovations such as steam-driven printing presses and, most importantly, the telegraph, making delivery of the news much faster.

In his engrossing and enlightening new book, Lincoln and the Power of the Press, pre-eminent Lincoln authority Harold Holzer explores the complex relationships that influenced the political journalism of the era. He focuses on two of the most widely covered politicians, Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, and the chief journalistic personalities of the day, all from New York City: Horace Greeley of the Tribune, James Gordon Bennett of the Herald and Henry Raymond of the Times. Greeley and Raymond had, like Lincoln, been Whigs who became Republicans. Bennett was deeply conservative and almost always supported the Democrats. Each had strong views and used his paper to influence policy in many areas.

From very early in his life Lincoln devoured newspapers, and they were instrumental in both his rise to the presidency and his leadership while he was president. In his first signed newspaper article in March, 1832, he proposed himself as a candidate for the Illinois legislature. His first major address outside of the legislature was a call for reason in the face of extremist passion, and it was printed in full in a local paper. Lincoln even became co-owner of a Springfield German-language newspaper even though he did not speak that language. He believed that “Public sentiment is everything,” and Holzer shows how he became a master, especially as president, of his rarely acknowledged effort to control the press.

The most important pre-presidential newspaper help for Lincoln came in 1858 when he was the little-known challenger against the well-known incumbent Douglas for an Illinois Senate seat. The Chicago Press and Tribune proposed that the candidates engage in a series of statewide debates. Contrary to the debates’ historical reputation, neither candidate was at his best. And there were problems with the stenographers. They sat behind the candidates and could not always hear clearly what the debaters said, plus they had political loyalties of their own. Holzer demonstrates that the debates achieved their exalted place in history, not because of what the debaters said, but because of what the press made of their words in reprints, summaries and commentaries.

As an ambitious politician, Lincoln spent much time cultivating journalists at their offices throughout Illinois. He continued doing this as president although he never held a formal news conference and except for an 1862 White House visit by Nathaniel Hawthorne, did not grant any major interviews to journalists. He also found a way to reach the public and reduce the influence of newspaper editors by writing what appeared to be personal letters, and then strategically releasing the text of those letters to the press to reach far wider audiences.

The author vividly captures the lives of the colorful “big three” editors and other members of the press as they invented, for better or worse, modern journalism during the most divisive period in our country’s history. As the “first draft of history” was being written, we learn about the raw politics and undisguised philosophies that not only informed, but also divided, readers on issues such as slavery and the Civil War.

Holzer’s book is a fascinating, detailed and very readable look at a crucial aspect of Lincoln’s leadership and political genius. It deserves a wide readership.

In mid-19th-century America, newspapers were the primary sources of information and opinion. Most newspaper publishers and editors were closely aligned with politicians and, with few exceptions, opinions were emphasized more than news and loyalty to political parties more than the public interest. It was a time of significant change for the newspaper industry with technological innovations such as steam-driven printing presses and, most importantly, the telegraph, making delivery of the news much faster.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

Stitching the states back together

Review by Roger Bishop

At the time Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, he did not have a definite plan for dealing with the postwar South. Although 360,000 Union troops had died during the Civil War, the North had not suffered the widespread devastation of the Southern states. The nine million white citizens and four million former slaves who lived in the former Confederacy faced a grim future.

Six weeks after he assumed the presidency, Andrew Johnson revealed his vision for uniting the country. He declared a sweeping amnesty that restored all property, except slaves, to most rebels as long as they swore to “support, protect, and defend” the Constitution and the Union. To Radical Republican leaders such as Senator Charles Sumner and Representative Thaddeus Stevens, it seemed white residents of the South were treated with remarkable leniency.

In his magnificent After Lincoln: How the North Won the Civil War and Lost the Peace, A.J. Langguth takes us through the Reconstruction period and its many heroic and tragic events. Among the latter were the so-called Black Codes, stringent state laws passed after Johnson became president. They ranged from a South Carolina law requiring any black man who wanted work other than as a servant or farmer to apply for a license from a judge and pay an annual tax, to Kentucky, where all contracts had to be approved by a white citizen, to Florida where “impudence,” a form of vagrancy, could cause the violator to be whipped. Lynchings and the killing of innocent black citizens went unpunished.

For all practical purposes, Reconstruction ended in 1887 when Republican President Rutherford Hayes joined with Democrats in a deal that led to the removal of federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina. That arrangement brought to an end any hopes that African Americans would enjoy full equality as U.S. citizens.

Langguth skillfully illuminates the roles of key figures and offers enlightening commentary on events. After Lincoln is an excellent choice for readers who want to understand why the post-Civil War period was a major disappointment and why the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not come until 99 years after the end of the Civil War.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

At the time Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, he did not have a definite plan for dealing with the postwar South. Although 360,000 Union troops had died during the Civil War, the North had not suffered the widespread devastation of the Southern states. The nine million white citizens and four million former slaves who lived in the former Confederacy faced a grim future.
NonfictionPoliticsHistory

Friends in high places

Review by Roger Bishop

When 43-year-old John F. Kennedy assumed the U.S. presidency in January 1961, he appeared to have little in common with 66-year-old British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. The latter, son of an American mother and a British father, was a publisher, conservative politician and statesman and a wounded hero of World War I. Despite many personal differences, the two leaders shared a love of books and reading. In 1915, when he was seriously wounded on the Western front, Macmillan was found on the battlefield reading Prometheus in Greek. In later life, in moments of crisis he could be found sitting quietly and reading from Jane Austen. But during the 33 months that the two leaders, both pragmatists, worked together they came to deeply appreciate each other. Macmillan initiated their relationship with a “Dear Friend” letter, using the same appellation he had used with President Eisenhower, whom he had known for many years and worked with during World War II. As JFK pointed out in an interview: “I feel at home with him because I can share my loneliness with him. The others are all foreigners to me.” Christopher Sandford writes engagingly of their close relationship during some of the most important years of the Cold War in Harold and Jack: The Remarkable Friendship of Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy, a fascinating glimpse into the role of personal relationships in diplomacy.

In 1962, Kennedy estimated that 80 percent of his first year in office had been spent dealing with foreign policy. During their overlapping years in high office, he and Macmillan shared involvement in crises that included the building of the Berlin Wall by the Soviet Union, the Cuban missile crisis and numerous regional clashes. Above all was the issue of nuclear arms control. Macmillan believed that his supreme challenge in life was to avert a nuclear holocaust.

When he was 18, Kennedy studied for a year at the London School of Economics, and several years later was with his parents in the House of Commons when Neville Chamberlain explained his country’s decision to declare war on Nazi Germany. The future president’s book on Chamberlain’s appeasement policy, Why England Slept, published in 1940, was a bestseller. During his time in England, Kennedy began a lifelong fascination with that country’s social and cultural elite.

Sandford covers a lot of ground in Harold and Jack, in particular the two most significant shared achievements of the two men. First, Macmillan was instrumental in keeping the NATO and Commonwealth leaders supportive of Kennedy’s decisions during the Cuban missile crisis. Robert Kennedy wrote that without Macmillan’s support, “our position would have been seriously undermined.” JFK himself told the British ambassador that “with the exception of Bobby, the Prime Minister was (the) one I felt the most connection to” during that fateful week of October 22, 1961. Secondly, in July 1963, three-way negotiations with the U.S.S.R. resulted in the limited nuclear test-ban agreement. The treaty barred tests underwater, in the atmosphere, and in space and allowed up to seven annual on-site inspections by each side and was acclaimed around the world. It was, in a sense, the beginning of the end of the Cold War. JFK wrote to Macmillan: “No one can doubt the importance in all this of your own persistent pursuit of a solution. . . . [M]ore than once your initiative is what got things started again.” Kennedy aide and historian Arthur Schlesinger said the treaty “would not have come about with the intense personal commitment of Kennedy and Macmillan.”

On January 31, 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy sent Macmillan a deeply personal, eight-page letter concerning her husband’s life and legacy. She referred to her husband and Macmillan as the “two greatest men of our time.” It was the beginning of a long correspondence, affectionate and sometimes touchingly intimate, that ended only with Macmillan’s death in 1986.

Sandford’s book is a fascinating look at the mix of the personal and the public in high stakes foreign affairs.

When 43-year-old John F. Kennedy assumed the U.S. presidency in January 1961, he appeared to have little in common with 66-year-old British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. The latter, son of an American mother and a British father, was a publisher, conservative politician and statesman and a wounded hero of World War I. Despite many personal differences, the two leaders shared a love of books and reading. Christopher Sandford writes engagingly of their close relationship during some of the most important years of the Cold War in Harold and Jack: The Remarkable Friendship of Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy, a fascinating glimpse into the role of personal relationships in diplomacy.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

The 1970s: A transformative decade in American politics

Review by Roger Bishop

The 1970s were a tumultuous time in the U.S, defined by such events as the Vietnam War; the Watergate scandal; the Arab oil boycott; serious economic problems; and shocking revelations about illegal activities by our intelligence agencies. At one point, a Gallup poll found that 68 percent of Americans believed the government lied to them. All of this happened as the nation, somewhat dispirited, celebrated its bicentennial. Drawing on a vast array of sources, Rick Perlstein captures all of this and more in his sweeping, insightful and richly rewarding The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. His riveting narrative continues the author’s efforts to chronicle the ascendancy of conservatism in American political life (following the acclaimed Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus and Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America).

At the heart of Perlstein’s book is the question of what kind of nation we want to be. The turbulence of the 1960s and ’70s had given Americans an opportunity to reflect on our power and what some considered our arrogance. Many reasoned we should become more humble, question authority and have a greater sense of limits. Politicians, labeled “Watergate babies,” were elected to Congress, pledged to reform the country’s broken institutions. But that approach did not prevail. Among major political figures, only Ronald Reagan took a different path. He rarely discussed Watergate and Vietnam and, when he did, he downplayed their place in history. He described Watergate as a “witch hunt” and “lynching” and said the conspirators were “no worse than double parkers.” On Vietnam, his view was that America had not expended enough force; “the greatest immorality is to ask young men to fight or die for my country if it’s not a cause we are willing to win.” Instead, Reagan and others continued to emphasize that the U.S. was “the greatest nation in the history of the world.” The Invisible Bridge examines how such rhetoric came into being and how such hubris has come to define us.

The most important political expression of this belief was Reagan’s announcement that he would challenge Gerald Ford, the sitting president of his own party, for the presidential nomination in 1976. Reagan and Ford believed many of the same things, but they had very different styles. Every major distinction between the two had to do with the kind of nation America was. Ford liked the idea of national modesty; Reagan felt that the world’s rules didn’t necessarily apply to America

At more than 800 pages, Perlstein’s book is a work of prodigious research. He appears to have read virtually all of the available contemporary accounts of political life in the ‘70s and watched many of the era’s television news programs. He is also keenly aware of social currents and popular culture in the decade as well. The Invisible Bridge delves into the lives of colorful personalities and discusses significant events that influenced the political landscape at the time but are almost forgotten today.  This is a fascinating, extremely readable account of an important decade in America’s political history.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The 1970s were a tumultuous time in the U.S, defined by such events as the Vietnam War; the Watergate scandal; the Arab oil boycott; serious economic problems; and shocking revelations about illegal activities by our intelligence agencies. At one point, a Gallup poll found that 68 percent of Americans believed the government lied to them. All of this happened as the nation, somewhat dispirited, celebrated its bicentennial. Drawing on a vast array of sources, Rick Perlstein captures all of this and more in his sweeping, insightful and richly rewarding The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan.
NonfictionHistoryArts & Culture

What our architecture says about us

Review by Roger Bishop

If we choose, we can avoid most forms of art. Architecture is not one of them. It is all around us. In his wide-ranging and stimulating new book, Bricks and Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made, Tom Wilkinson explores many of the aspects—morality, power, economics, psychology, politics and sex are some—that help us better understand how architecture “shapes people’s lives and vice versa,” from ancient times to the present. His diverse selection of buildings includes Nero’s Golden House in Rome and the Festival Theatre in Beyreuth, as well as the Finsbury Health Centre in London and the Footbridge in Rio de Janeiro. Ten buildings are covered in detail, serving as springboards to discussions of related subjects.

Wilkinson begins by expressing his skepticism about the various myths concerning the origins of architecture. He demonstrates that historians writing on the subject often conveniently overlook their own limited knowledge and biases such as nationalism and colonialism. He is keenly aware that buildings have great potential to inspire and empower people, while the same structures may enslave others and cost them their lives. Wilkinson introduces us to Giovanni Rucellai, who was not an architect but devoted his energies to architecture and his business of building (and self-promotion) became an art in itself. We learn of Le Corbusier (a pseudonym), the 20th century’s most famous architect, and his mad passion for a house in France designed by Eileen Gray and her resentment of his obsession.

Monuments honor the memories that communities and nations are built on. They may appear eternal but they can be damaged, restored or destroyed and given new meanings by rulers or the populace. The Bastille had a double image, changed by revolutionary action from a symbol of despotism to a symbol of freedom. It should be pointed out that when the Bastille was liberated there were only seven prisoners, none of whom were allied with tyrannical oppression. Monuments are often built by the “winners” in history and are frequently, as Walter Benjamin has written, “documents of barbarism.” Wilkinson cites what may be “the most controversial modern mausoleum,” located outside Madrid, built by Francisco Franco to commemorate the Spanish Civil War. Although the complex has been called a monument to national reconciliation, most of those interred there were nationalists and fascists. As for Franco himself, the numerous statues of him were removed from every public space in Spain under the Law of Historical Memory passed by the government in recent years.

The only U.S. building of the 10 is architect Alfred Kahn’s Highland Park Car Factory in Detroit, a collaboration between the unlikely team of anti-Semitic industrialist Henry Ford and Kahn, the son of a rabbi. Their Highland Park plant, a huge, austere shed, led to greater production and changed the world of business. After four years, the original plant was obsolete, so the two men worked on more appropriate structures. “Perhaps more than anything else, it was the contingency of Ford’s buildings—his and Kahn’s reconception of architecture as a process rather than something fixed and eternal—that marks them out as new,” WIlkinson writes. Kahn’s sheds had a great influence on European modernist architects. He had one of the biggest architectural practices in the world, and by 1929, he was producing one million dollars’ worth of new buildings a week. Kahn’s view was that architecture was 90 per cent business and 10 per cent art.

Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil’s most famous architect, said that “Life is more important than architecture.” Wilkinson picks up on that idea and points out that many people in the world today live in inadequate buildings made without architects. “The biggest challenge facing architecture is the provision of housing for ordinary people,” he argues. Reaching this goal is not impossible; he says; “examples of superb, cheap design abound in developing countries.”

This thought-provoking exploration of different kinds of architecture helps us better understand something we often take for granted or consider too specialized.

If we choose, we can avoid most forms of art. Architecture is not one of them. It is all around us. In his wide-ranging and stimulating new book, Bricks and Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made, Tom Wilkinson explores many of the aspects—morality, power, economics, psychology, politics and sex are some—that help us better understand how architecture “shapes people’s lives and vice versa,” from ancient times to the present. His diverse selection of buildings includes Nero’s Golden House in Rome and the Festival Theatre in Beyreuth, as well as the Finsbury Health Centre in London and the Footbridge in Rio de Janeiro. Ten buildings are covered in detail, serving as springboards to discussions of related subjects.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

The beginning of the American Revolution

Review by Roger Bishop

Who fired the first shot on Lexington Green on the morning of April 19, 1775, remains in dispute. Both the British regulars and the American rebels vehemently denied that it came from their side. What is agreed on is that after that first shot was heard, there was immediately sporadic and then volley fire from the British regulars. In June, there was the catastrophic Battle of Bunker Hill. While the result was indecisive, it was a self-proclaimed British victory at a staggering cost. The engagement was costly for the rebels as well, but they left no doubt that they were not about to give up. This was all-out war.

Events during the first six months of 1775 were crucial to determining whether the colonies were to remain obedient to Great Britain or to become independent and form a more representative government. Walter R. Borneman’s superb American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution tells the story of that period in significant detail with descriptions of military engagements and legislative actions, but never loses sight of the personalities at all levels. To a great extent, Borneman relies on the original affidavits, correspondence and memories of the participants and views events from their perspective—before they knew what the outcome would be—giving us a remarkably fresh look at this transformative period.

Among the colorful figures are two unlikely couplings. There was politically savvy Samuel Adams, a failed businessman and part-time brewer, and the wealthy merchant John Hancock. For their own reasons, having to do with money or lack of it, they worked for rebellion. A second coupling, the ambitious wheeler-dealer Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen, a frontiersman of bravado and bluster, teamed to capture Fort Ticonderoga. Lesser-known figures who played important roles include John Derby Jr., who was entrusted with delivering early reports of the Lexington battles to moderates in Great Britain sympathetic to the rebel cause. Unknown to him, the person who was to receive these documents, Benjamin Franklin, had sailed for North America. But Derby reached the helpful Lord Mayor of London who helped to spread the rebel version of events before the official version arrived from General Thomas Gage.

Borneman’s authoritative, carefully structured and very well written account often seems to place readers in the moment with events that changed the course of history.

 

This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Who fired the first shot on Lexington Green on the morning of April 19, 1775, remains in dispute. Both the British regulars and the American rebels vehemently denied that it came from their side. What is agreed on is that after that first shot was heard, there was immediately sporadic and then volley fire from the British regulars. In June, there was the catastrophic Battle of Bunker Hill. While the result was indecisive, it was a self-proclaimed British victory at a staggering cost.

NonfictionBiography

The lasting vision of our sixth president

Review by Roger Bishop

John Quincy Adams was devoted to literature, and had he been able to pursue his ideal career, he wrote in 1817, “I should have made myself a great poet.” He did write poetry throughout his extraordinary life, but, from a very young age, his parents strongly encouraged him toward life as a leader in the new republic. His literary skills, however, were not wasted. There were his letters, essays on public policy and speeches, all of which he wrote himself. The best expression of these skills often came in his diary, begun in 1779 and continuing until his death in 1848. It would become the most valuable firsthand account of an American life and events during that period.

Award-winning biographer Fred Kaplan, whose subjects have included Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle, draws heavily on Adams’ diary and other writings to bring our sixth president vividly to life in John Quincy Adams: American Visionary. Because his presidency is usually regarded as unsuccessful, Adams’ place as a visionary and prophet is often overlooked. Kaplan’s book emphasizes how Adams’ vision and values have stood the test of time.

Adams was an outstanding diplomat in Europe, as well as president, senator, secretary of state, Harvard professor and, for the last 16 years of his life, a member of the House of Representatives, the only former president to serve in Congress. He spent his years there eloquently proposing and defending his reform agenda, which included, most prominently, opposition to slavery.

A dominant theme of Adams’ life, following the lead of his Founding Father father, John Adams, was the importance of a “social compact” that united the country’s inhabitants. In a speech in Boston in 1802, he emphasized the centrality of a union based on values expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and to “perpetuate this union is the first political duty . . . of every American.” It was this pledge to union, despite the controversial compromises needed to create the Constitution, that guided his life.    

Although Adams’ presidency is often considered a failure, it is hard to place all of the blame on him. The supporters of Andrew Jackson, who won the popular vote but lost to Adams when the election was decided in the House, vehemently opposed his legislative proposals. Even some of his political friends felt that Adams’ vision— which included a federally supported national infrastructure, a regulated banking system, an important role for the federal government in scientific and cultural initiatives—went too far.

This important book combines solid research and wisely selected excerpts from Adams’ writings with an engaging narrative about a man who made significant contributions to our national life.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

John Quincy Adams was devoted to literature, and had he been able to pursue his ideal career, he wrote in 1817, “I should have made myself a great poet.” He did write poetry throughout his extraordinary life, but, from a very young age, his parents strongly encouraged him toward life as a leader in the new republic. His literary skills, however, were not wasted.

NonfictionBiography

The beginning of Gandhi’s journey

Review by Roger Bishop

Mohandas K. Gandhi was born and raised in India and is best known for his work there as a world-renowned social reformer, political thinker, religious pluralist and prophet. If his life had followed the traditional path for someone of his family and caste, he would have remained in India, served in a prominent position and been unknown to most of the world. But as the noted scholar Ramachandra Guha demonstrates in his eminently readable and exhaustively researched Gandhi Before India, the 20 years that Gandhi spent in South Africa before his return to his home country in 1914 were fundamental to his success.

It was in South Africa that Gandhi invented what he named “satyagraha” or the “force of truth in a good cause,” the techniques of mass civil disobedience in which those in authority are shamed by nonviolent protesters willing to suffer beatings and imprisonment to attain justice. As he was about to leave South Africa for good, Gandhi called satyagraha “perhaps the mightiest instrument on earth.”

Nothing in Gandhi’s life had prepared him for the intensity of racial prejudice in South Africa. He went there, for what he thought would be a short time, to represent a prominent businessman in a lawsuit. He won the case and was asked to stay longer to help defeat a bill that would keep Indians, who were coming to South Africa in increasing numbers, from registering to vote. In his autobiography, Gandhi writes: “Thus God laid the foundations of my life in South Africa and sowed the seed of the fight for national self-respect.” His biographer speculates that it may have had more to do with the actions of the ruling class of white men.

Guha’s research took him to archives around the world, where he found many previously unknown or unused documents, including private papers of Gandhi’s friends and co-workers. As a result, Gandhi Before India presents the most complete portrait we have of a very human Gandhi during this period. Perhaps most importantly, we learn that Gandhi had a real gift for friendship. His closest friends in South Africa were two Hindus, two Jews and two Christian clergymen. Each was courageous and impressive, no one more than Gandhi’s devoted Jewish secretary, Sonja Schlesin, a steadfast supporter of his work.

Guha takes us through the negotiations Gandhi conducted with government officials, and we see how skilled he was in this arena. A strategist of slow reform, he proceeded incrementally, protesting by stages, preparing himself and his followers systematically rather than spontaneously rushing into confrontation. It was only when petitions, letters and meetings with authorities had failed that he chose to demonstrate.

This is an engrossing look at a major figure of the 20th century during a pivotal period in the development of his influential philosophy.

Mohandas K. Gandhi was born and raised in India and is best known for his work there as a world-renowned social reformer, political thinker, religious pluralist and prophet. If his life had followed the traditional path for someone of his family and caste, he would have remained in India, served in a prominent position and been unknown to most of the world. But as the noted scholar Ramachandra Guha demonstrates in his eminently readable and exhaustively researched Gandhi Before India, the 20 years that Gandhi spent in South Africa before his return to his home country in 1914 were fundamental to his success.

NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

A presidential posse

Review by Roger Bishop

At the time of his death, Abraham Lincoln was immensely popular with the Northern public. The country’s political elite, however, regarded him as a good country lawyer ill-suited to deal with the heavy responsibilities of a wartime presidency. Influential writers and politicians of all stripes blamed him for a series of political blunders.

Early in their tenure as President Lincoln’s private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay began to plan for a joint biography of their boss. Lincoln’s assassination and Nicolay and Hay’s service in diplomatic positions for the next five years put the idea on hold, but it was not forgotten. When the two men did complete their work, in 10 volumes, the Lincoln they wrote about is the one we know today. That is to say, he was the Great Emancipator, the brilliant political tactician, the military genius, the greatest orator in American history.

Joshua Zeitz tells the story of their deliberate work of historical creation, grounded in evidence and fact, in his superb Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image. “The boys,” as Lincoln called them (both were in their 20s at the time) knew him as president more intimately than anyone outside his family. They lived in the White House and worked seven days a week.

Zeitz emphasizes that Hay and Nicolay were quite different personalities. Nicolay had been deeply involved in politics and was a Lincoln loyalist well before 1860. Hay, who had many other interests, drifted into politics and developed a growing admiration for the president during the White House years.

Nicolay and Hay spent 15 years researching and writing their multi-volume biography. One of the highlights of Lincoln’s Boys is to show how their views on slavery evolved over time. Their book emphasizes that the Civil War was rooted in the moral offense of slavery, a view they did not hold in 1861, or even as late as 1865.

This is a fascinating and extremely well-written account of the central role played by Lincoln’s private secretaries in determining how the 16th president would be regarded by future generations.

At the time of his death, Abraham Lincoln was immensely popular with the Northern public. The country’s political elite, however, regarded him as a good country lawyer ill-suited to deal with the heavy responsibilities of a wartime presidency. Influential writers and politicians of all stripes blamed him for a series of political blunders.

American History

In a turbulent era, a clash at the top

Review by Roger Bishop

At the start of the 20th century, the United States faced significant and wrenching changes: rapid industrialization, the growth of corporations, a widening gap between rich and poor, abuse of power, and corruption in both government and business. In her sprawling and richly rewarding new book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin skillfully demonstrates how two presidents of the era dealt with these major domestic challenges. She shows how one president came to be regarded as a great leader, while the other fell short. Her compelling narrative also explains the crucial role played in this period by legendary investigative journalists.

At the center of Goodwin’s story are two close friends who became president: Theodore Roosevelt, then vice president, assumed the office in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley; William Howard Taft was elected in 1908 after service as the key member of Roosevelt’s cabinet and with Roosevelt’s enthusiastic support. Goodwin describes the private lives of the two men and their families in significant detail to give readers a better understanding of their close ties and their sudden and bitter break in 1912.

Roosevelt and Taft were temperamentally quite different, as were their approaches to leadership. From early in his political career, Roosevelt was aware of the importance of the press in public leadership. He placed strong reliance on “the bully pulpit," the phrase he coined to describe his use of the presidency to make the public aware of issues and to seek their support for appropriate action. He courted muckraking journalists, especially those with McClure’s, the leading progressive publication of the time.

The journalists brought together by “genius” publisher and editor Sam McClure included Ida Tarbell, who is probably best known for revealing the predatory and illegal practices of Standard Oil; Ray Stannard Baker, whose work included exposing how a small circle of private owners controlled the country’s transportation network; and Lincoln Steffens, whose outstanding series on municipal and state corruption inspired reformers throughout the country. McClure believed that, “The story is the thing,” and he gave his reporters time to do extensive research before publishing their articles. Roosevelt kept up with what they were doing, invited them to visit him and used their work in preparing legislation and writing speeches.

Goodwin notes that perhaps the biggest surprise in her research was that Taft “was a far more sympathetic, if flawed, figure than I had realized.” She shows how Taft, as secretary of war and in other ways, was TR’s most important cabinet member. Whenever the president was away, Taft was considered the “acting president.” Even before joining the cabinet, Taft had been widely praised as a judge, solicitor general of the U. S. and governor general of the Philippines. When Roosevelt ran for president in his own right, Taft was the most requested surrogate for the president on the campaign trail. Yet despite these achievements, Taft’s judicial temperament, aversion to dissension and preference for personal persuasion led him to work within the system rather than mobilize external pressure.

Although the investigative reporters offered to help him, Taft admitted that he was “derelict” in his use of the bully pulpit. Even his weekly press conferences became a chore and he stopped doing them. Timing is important in politics, and Roosevelt’s ideals were always moderated by his pragmatism and his ability to shrewdly calculate popular sentiment. Antitrust suits are an example of the Taft-Roosevelt difference in this regard. Roosevelt was popular as the nation’s “trustbuster,” while Taft was frequently criticized for doing the same thing. Goodwin points out that “Taft had actually instituted more antitrust suits than his predecessor.” But the populace had changed and wanted the government to prevent the formation of monopolies in the first place; it was seen as mean-spirited to litigate after the fact.

Goodwin excels at capturing the relationship between personalities and government policy in a turbulent period. The three interwoven strands of her story—Roosevelt, who expanded the role of government in American life and transformed the presidency; Taft, a cabinet member so crucial to Roosevelt’s success, yet temperamentally unsuited to be an effective president himself; and Roosevelt’s use of “the bully pulpit,” especially through his relationships with McClure’s investigative journalists—make for compelling reading.

 

At the start of the 20th century, the United States faced significant and wrenching changes: rapid industrialization, the growth of corporations, a widening gap between rich and poor, abuse of power, and corruption in both government and business. In her sprawling and richly rewarding new…

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