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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.

The 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.
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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.

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.
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Ronald Reagan is trending. Everyone from Ted Cruz to Barack Obama sings his praises. Why is Reagan so popular? Was it his movie-star looks? His cowboy swagger? His “America first” doctrine? H.W. Brands covers it all in his thorough biography, Reagan.

Don’t look for any new ground to be broken here. But if you admire the 40th president as much as many politicians do, you’ll enjoy Brands’ telling of familiar stories.

The author takes us on a journey from Reagan’s boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois, to Hollywood, where he became a reliable B-movie actor. Reagan got his footing in politics as president of the Screen Actors Guild, where he cooperated with the FBI during the Red Scare. During his two-term presidency, he was credited with being tough on Russia and cutting the size of the federal government.

Brands, who has written five previous presidential biographies, argues that Reagan rivals FDR as the greatest president of the 20th century. While his detailed biography is thorough, there is a shortage of arguments to help Brands make his case. Reagan’s two terms in office ended in 1989, and there is a longing for Brands to add perspective in a postscript. Having had 25 years to ponder, surely this accomplished writer could help us understand why Reagan remains so beloved.

No matter. Despite its flaws, there’s little doubt this book will be as popular as the former president.

 

CORRECTION: This review has been updated to reflect the fact that Reagan left office in 1989.

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

Ronald Reagan is trending. Everyone from Ted Cruz to Barack Obama sings his praises. Why is Reagan so popular? Was it his movie-star looks? His cowboy swagger? His “America first” doctrine? H.W. Brands covers it all in his thorough biography, Reagan.
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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.
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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.

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.

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.
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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.

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr., stepped into the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York City and delivered a thunderous sermon opposing the war in Vietnam. In that now-famous moment, King denounced the strident militarism of the American government—describing it as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"— and outlined what he saw as the connections between the war effort, racism and poverty.

In Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year, television host Tavis Smiley provides a "you-are-there" account of King's political, moral and personal struggles from the time of the Riverside sermon to his assassination exactly one year later. By the summer of 1967, the fabric of the civil rights movement had started to fray; rival factions within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) challenged what they viewed as King's betrayal of purpose as he moved to focus more on the war than the struggles against racism. Younger black leaders, including H. Rap Brown and Jesse Jackson, moved away from King's nonviolent strategies, dividing the black community, especially in northern cities like Chicago and Detroit where poverty fueled race riots. By the time of King's assassination, Smiley shows that chaos more than community reigned among civil rights activists.

Drawing on new interviews with King's family and closest associates, Smiley recreates not only the cultural and political strife of King's final months but also his deep weariness from having to stay constantly on the move to meet with other leaders or participate in acts of civil protest. Unlike other, more definitive, biographies of King, such as Taylor Branch's Parting of the Waters, Smiley's account takes King off his pedestal and offers glimpses of the high personal costs King paid for his commitment to the moral callings of his conscience.

 

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr., stepped into the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York City and delivered a thunderous sermon opposing the war in Vietnam. In that now-famous moment, King denounced the strident militarism of the American government—describing it as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"— and outlined what he saw as the connections between the war effort, racism and poverty.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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When The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, it got a decidedly tepid reception. Reviews were mixed, sales were deeply disappointing. F. Scott Fitzgerald just couldn’t get it together to write anything serious, some critics said. The book seemed too ephemeral to many readers—ripped from the headlines, like an episode of “Law and Order” today.

Of course, opinion has changed, and we now see Gatsby as a timeless classic. To Americans educated on the symbolism of the green light on the dock, the early response seems mysterious. But, as literary historian Sarah Churchwell explains in her fascinating Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, it really wasn’t.

Gatsby was actually much more rooted in its contemporary scene than we remember. Fitzgerald got his ideas for the novel in a particular time and place: New York City and environs in late 1922, when he and wife Zelda were very young, very famous and usually drunk out of their minds. The self-destructive tendencies that soon destroyed them were already sadly in evidence.

Churchwell guides us through the formation of Fitzgerald’s Gatsby ideas, as much as it can be recreated, by following the couple’s lives during that time, and blending their story with what was going on around them. Fitzgerald himself noted a number of the influences, in a terse outline he wrote years later. But Churchwell also takes particular interest in the then-notorious Hall-Mills double murder in New Jersey.

What a murder it was: An adulterous couple, a minister and a choir singer, were found slain under a lover’s lane apple tree. The minister’s wife was rich; the choir singer’s husband was a janitor; a weird person known as “the Pig Woman” claimed to have seen the crime. New Jersey authorities so botched the case that it was never solved (though Churchwell pretty clearly has her own suspect.)

Fitzgerald only mentioned it once in an interview, but Churchwell makes a good case that it subtly underlies Gatsby. Think about it: A downmarket Madame Bovary has an affair with an upper class guy and ends up dead. Her husband is a hapless working-class stiff. Sound anything like Myrtle, Tom and George from Gatsby?

As Churchwell emphasizes, Myrtle’s death is not the Hall-Mills case any more than newspaperman Bayard Swope’s parties are Gatsby’s parties or Gatsby is a bootlegger named Gerlach. Fitzgerald was an artist, not a writer of romans a clef. But Churchwell has produced an intriguing glimpse into how his mind worked, as he mined the Jazz Age innovations that still shape our world. 

When The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, it got a decidedly tepid reception. Reviews were mixed, sales were deeply disappointing. F. Scott Fitzgerald just couldn’t get it together to write anything serious, some critics said. The book seemed too ephemeral to many readers—ripped from the headlines, like an episode of “Law and Order” today.

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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.

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