Who knew that FDR was a budding oologist at age 10? Not only did he collect birds’ eggs and nests (oology), the young Franklin Roosevelt (burdened during his Groton years with the nickname “Feather Duster”) was a fairly serious ornithologist and naturalist. These lifelong pursuits, along with a deep and abiding appreciation for his Hudson River home, would help shape and define his conservation legacy during his presidency.

Bestselling author and Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley is no stranger to the Roosevelt family. His 2009 book, The Wilderness Warrior, celebrated Theodore Roosevelt’s love of the outdoors and his vision to protect more than 200 million acres of wild America. In this new work, Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America, Brinkley brings his masterful research and storytelling skills to the life of Theodore’s cousin Franklin. But this is not simply a narrow examination of one aspect of the president’s interest in the outdoors. Instead, Brinkley uses FDR’s love of the natural world as a biographical lens, offering readers new insights into this complex national figure.

From Roosevelt’s boyhood in the Hudson, Brinkley traces his marriage to Eleanor and subsequent political career. He explores New Deal Conservation (1933-1938) and the ways in which Roosevelt married conservation goals to economic policy to combat the unemployment of the Great Depression. Anyone who has hiked on an old trail has probably been reminded of the enduring legacy of the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, which as Brinkley reveals, had a dual purpose. “If the primary selling point to Congress was work relief, the long-term vision was nothing less than to heal the wounded American earth.”

Roosevelt, asserts Brinkley, was nothing less than “America’s landscape planner.” The president made his mark in a variety of ways, from his efforts to establish local and regional park systems, to his campaigns to preserve national resources, working alongside leading environmental visionaries of the era.

Even if you’ve read other Roosevelt biographies or seen Ken Burns’ documentary, The Roosevelts, there are surprising insights in store here, as Brinkley masterfully chronicles Roosevelt’s strengths and weaknesses and the progress of the environmental movement itself during his years in office. For anyone interested in the history of our natural treasures, or who thought they understood the Roosevelt presidency, Rightful Heritage is a must read.

There is nothing so compelling as history well told, whether in print or on film. And viewers who were engrossed by Ken Burns’ recent PBS series on the Roosevelts will find Jay Winik’s new book on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History, especially appealing. Winik, who has written about America’s founding (The Great Upheaval) and the Civil War (April 1865), brings his considerable gifts as a storyteller and a talented historian to this new work exploring the pivotal year of Roosevelt’s presidency and of World War II. 

Winik seamlessly sets FDR the man, beset by physical limitations and increasingly bad health, within the context of the complex, high-stakes international challenges he faced. In the spring of 1944, Winik shows us a Roosevelt exhausted and ill, plagued by headaches and a hacking cough—a man who sometimes fell asleep in the midst of dictation. 

Yet Roosevelt was also a “resolute and clear-sighted wartime leader,” a leader unwilling to accept defeat when, as it did during that crucial year, the entire history of civilization seemed to hang in the balance. Looking back, the defeat of Hitler and the success of the Normandy invasion may seem inevitable, but at the time this was far from the case. At the same time, Winik explores in detail the implications of the Roosevelt administration’s decision not to launch military strikes against Nazi death camps. 

As the 75th anniversary of America’s entry into World War II approaches next year, Winik has given us a chance to move beyond simple commemoration to a fuller understanding of the era.

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The residents of the Gulf Coast in the 1770s and 1780s saw the American Revolution differently from the rebelling colonists in the north. Initially they regarded it as another imperial war, fought for land and treasure. Eventually, though, the Gulf Coast became the only site of Revolutionary War battles that was outside the rebelling colonies but later became part of the U.S. The area had a diverse population that included the British, French and Spanish, people of African descent, and Native Americans. Most of these groups had no interest in Britain’s attempt to tax and regulate its colonists, nor to rebel. When war began to affect them, however, it brought both opportunities and dangers, and many used it to advance their own ambitions for themselves, their families and their nations.

In her richly detailed and riveting Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution, historian Kathleen DuVal explores what the war and its aftermath meant in the lives of eight individuals who lived in an area with many competing interests. The most important long-term need for the region was more land for the steadily expanding population. In the short term, decisions about whether to fight, which side to support and how to secure rights and property became major concerns.

Independence was not a universal goal in the 18th century. For most people on the continent, advantageous interdependence was a more realistic goal. On the Gulf Coast, only Native-American leaders fought for sovereign independence. But, they, too, operated through a complicated arrangement of interdependencies. By winning the American Revolution, the rebels advanced their own varieties of independence at the expense of others, primarily Native Americans whose ancestors had lived on the land for centuries and millions of enslaved Africans whose labor helped to fuel a new industrial economy. Despite their land being fought over by others, the Indians were not invited either to the meetings that led to the Treaty of Paris officially ending the war or to join the union of other sovereign states.

The war sometimes gave chances for individual liberties and even freedom from slavery but no side proposed the abolition of slavery. The status of white women did not change for the better and often got worse. Life-changing decisions continued to be made by men. Although nearly half of the North American population was female, few women are mentioned in accounts of war and building a nation.

DuVal skillfully weaves the lives of her main characters into the larger themes. The vast majority of the land in the region belonged to the Indians. Success or defeat for the British, French, Spanish or Indian nations depended on the decisions of Native Americans to fight or refuse to do so. Two prominent Indian leaders are profiled in the book. One is Payamataha, a leader of the Chickasaws, who played a key role in such decisions. A combination of diplomat and spiritual leader, he sought independence for his people through a pragmatic course of peaceful coexistence. During the 1760s and 1770s he led his nation to make peace with a sizable group of other Indian nations, all of them long-time enemies of his people. Forces beyond his control created problems later on. The other Indian leader discussed in detail is Alexander McGillivray, of Creek-Scots ancestry, who supported the British in the war. In its aftermath, he promoted Creek independence and worked toward a confederation of Indian nations committed to protecting their land.

There is also Oliver Pollock, a British subject and wealthy merchant in Havana and New Orleans, who was able to do business easily with the Spanish and French. The Continental Congress appointed him its commercial agent in Louisiana, and he invested virtually all of his fortune with the rebels in the American Revolution. His wife, Margaret O’Brien, saw her life change for the worse because of her husband’s decision.

James Bryce and Isabella Chrystie were firmly on the side of the British. Living in West Florida, they realized that their independence depended on the connections, infrastructure and order provided by the British Empire. They understood that they received much more in services from the crown than they paid to it.

Petit Jean was enslaved but played a more autonomous role than most slaves in post-1763 Mobile. He was a cattle driver who had a deep knowledge of the landscape around him and was entrusted with great responsibility. He could have run away but had he been caught, the consequences would have been severe. The slaves’ loyalty was not to their masters or a government but working for their own families’ interest in the whites’ war of rebellion.

Amand Broussard was a rancher in Louisiana whose family had been expelled from Acadia (now the northern coast of Canada) by the British. Although the Acadians had prospered in part from selling their grain to the British in West Florida, they had not forgotten the harsh treatment they had received by the British.

In this important book, the author writes “Striving for American independence really meant striving for the right balance of independence and dependence. Native Americans and European empires struck different balances and both lost in North America.” How this happened is a complex story and DuVal tells it magnificently.

Andrew Jackson, acting as both a government employee and a private citizen, was more responsible than any other single person for creating the region we call the Deep South. He did the most to establish the land for the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. As president, his first significant initiative was a proposal to remove all Indians from the area. But, long before, while serving as a major general, he wrote, “The object of the government is to bring into market this land and have it populated.” Native Americans were removed by armies, acts, treaties and laws.

At the same time, private citizen Jackson was also deeply involved in real estate transactions on land that he had captured as a general. While on the military payroll, he bought and operated slave plantations and, in collaboration with friends, relatives and business associates, opened land to white settlers. Many real estate records were lost, but the names of Jackson and others close to him appear on the purchase records for at least 45,000 acres sold in the Tennessee Valley from 1818 onward. The evidence indicates that Jackson was able to align the nation’s national security affairs in a way that matched his interest in land development.

The Cherokee Nation, whose ancestors had lived on the land for many years, saw things differently. Led by the extraordinary John Ross, a politician and diplomat, they used every approach available to remain on their land. Ross’ father was a descendant of Scots-Irish traders going back to British colonial times and his mother was one-fourth Cherokee. He could have passed as white but something drew him closer to his Indian identity. This epic struggle between cultures and strong personalities is at the heart of Steve Inskeep’s fast-paced, extensively researched Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab.

Inskeep is a co-host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and an award-winning journalist. His lively narrative details the many negotiations and increasingly strained relations between the two sides. Ross, an eloquent speaker and successful entrepreneur, was a keen strategist who used his skills well in an era when sovereignty was more often defended with words than with lethal weapons. By articulating the ways the Cherokees had worked with the U.S. government, including serving in the Army, he was able to establish a moral foundation for his cause. In a letter to the War Department Ross wrote, “We consider ourselves as a part of the great family of the Republic of the U. States,” willing to sacrifice everything in defending the republic.

It is crucial to understand that in the early 1800s there were two different and mutually exclusive maps, the white man’s map and the Indian map. Native Americans in the region had been on the defensive for centuries and in Jackson’s day the Five Civilized Tribes (as they were called because they adapted their cultures to white society) still lived in their heartlands.

Jackson had complex views about Indians. He was a frontier leader who made his own rules and in later years would be known as an “Indian hater.” He believed in being “just,” on his terms. He could show mercy and respect and have empathy for others. Indians served in his troops, and he honored his promise to give them the same pay and benefits as white soldiers, and to assure that their widows received appropriate benefits. After a horrendous battle, an infant orphan Creek (Indian) boy was found in the arms of his dead mother. Jackson decided to keep the baby and raise him in his own home. But these qualities were always governed by his ruthlessness and his will to win. Ross was also fiercely competitive but he had moments when his stubbornness allowed for generosity.

There were many prominent figures, including Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall and former attorney general William Wirt, who were sympathetic to the Cherokee cause but were unable to stop the removal of the Cherokees. Jacksonland also features many other interesting figures such as Elias Boudinot, the founding editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native-American newspaper; Jeremiah Evarts, whose influential essays promoted the Cherokee cause to a national audience; and Catharine Beecher, who played a key role in the first mass political action by women in the history of the U.S.

Jackson left his two-term presidency in 1837 and died in 1845 but his political influence remained for another generation. His Democratic Party won four of the six presidential elections after he left office. Ross moved to the West with the last group of Cherokees in December 1838. He lived long enough to see the Union prevail in the Civil War, a conflict that saw Cherokees fighting on both sides. At his death in 1866, Cherokees were negotiating another peace treaty with the U.S. that required them to give the government more of the land that was to have been theirs forever.

Inskeep’s superb storytelling skills guide us through a critical period of transition that meant heartbreak for thousands but continued expansion of the country for many others.

A version of this article was originally published in the June 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Seems like every time Americans get scared in large numbers, innocent people are killed or sent to jail—and the Constitution be damned. That was so with African Americans, native Americans, left-leaning Americans, pacifist Americans and, now, Muslim Americans. In Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese-American Internment in World War II, Richard Reeves re-tells—with heart-breaking specificity—the story of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast who were incarcerated during World War II strictly because of their ancestry. More than 120,000 were stripped of their property, freedom of movement and community standing and held in “relocation centers.” Courts generally turned a deaf ear. That no such roundups were made of German Americans or Italian Americans laid bare the racist undercurrent.

After Pearl Harbor, it was open season on all “Japs.” Politicians and newspapers vilified them as an undifferentiated mass of saboteurs in waiting. When no sabotage occurred, the persecutors said it was evidence that an attack was still being planned. The most abysmal aspect of this injustice was the number of public figures—subsequently to distinguish themselves as liberals—who jumped onto the racist bandwagon. Among these were California attorney general and later governor, Earl Warren, who would go on to become chief justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; American Civil Liberties Union founder Roger Baldwin; and cartoonist and writer Theodore Geisel, who, as Dr. Seuss, would teach generations of children the virtues of inclusion and tolerance. Of course, progressive President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the order allowing this to happen.

Forced to start new lives, most of the prisoners made the best of it, growing crops and establishing schools, newspapers and other social institutions. Some were eventually allowed out of the camps to attend college or find jobs in the Midwest and East. A sizable number, mostly from Hawaii, joined the army and proved their patriotism on the battlefield. Reeves follows the personal trajectories of dozens of camp inmates to illuminate both their loss and resilience.

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.

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.

While we all know George Washington as our first president and leader of American forces in the Revolutionary War, in The Return of George Washington: 1783-1789, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson illuminates another key role he played: leading the Constitutional Convention.

It was, it turns out, a charge Washington took on reluctantly. After securing victory in the Revolutionary War after nine years of dedicated leadership, the towering 51-year-old general announced his retirement on December 23, 1783. But a private life was not to be his. Less than four years later, with health problems a continuing concern, Washington faced a dilemma: Should he attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia?

As Larson tells us, the future president realized that, “For his own sake and the sake of the country, he should not go unless the convention was likely to succeed, and yet it was not likely to succeed unless he went.”

And so it was. The delegates elected Washington president of the convention to lead them through the morass any rebelling society faces: It is one thing to achieve military victory, quite another to design a functioning government. In America’s case, there was also the need to balance the interests of the central government with the concerns of powerful, independent-minded states.

Larson brings readers into innards of the Constitutional Convention: the formation of committees to tackle issues such as presidential selection and executive power, debates on the power to tax and the length of the president’s term and the crafting of language to meet the desires of both nationalists and their opponents. There was even a “Committee of Style and Arrangement” charged with giving the draft document a “last polish.” And, of course, in the end, Washington accepted the mantle of leadership.

As elections role around once more, Larson’s impeccable research and impressive storytelling acumen may be just the thing readers need to restore appreciation for the system of government we inherited, and still strive to perfect. 

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

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.

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.

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.