Best Political Parties

The New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled pulls back the curtain on the shady world of opposition research and reveals the dirty tricks those in power use to influence your opinions. Behind most major political stories in the modern era, there is an agenda; an effort by opposition researchers, spin doctors, and outside interests to destroy an idea or a person. Now, the hard-hitting investigative reporter shares her inside knowledge, revealing how the Smear takes shape and who its perpetrators are—including Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal and, most influential of all, "right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin" ( National Review ) political operative David Brock and his Media Matters for America empire. Maybe you watched someone on the news report that Donald Trump is a racist misogynist, read that Hillary Clinton used a body double, or heard that Bernie Sanders cheated in the primary. Now hard-hitting investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, the New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled , takes you behind the scenes of the modern smear machine, exploring how operatives from corporations and both sides of the political aisle have manipulated a complicit mainstream media to make disinformation, rumor, and dirty tricks defining traits of our democracy. Pulling back the curtain on the shady world of opposition research, she reveals how those in power create well-funded, organized attack campaigns to take down their enemies and influence your opinions, offering a detailed examination of the think tanks, super PACs, LLCs, and nonprofits that have become the hidden backers of some of the biggest smears in American politics. Attkisson hosts the Sunday morning national TV news program "Full Measure," which focuses on investigative and accountability reporting.For thirty years, Attkisson was a correspondent and anchor at CBS News, PBS, CNN and in local news.In 2013, she received an Emmy Award for OutstandingInvestigative Journalism for her reporting on "The Business of Congress," whichincluded an undercover investigation into fundraising by Republican freshmen.She received two other Emmy nominations in 2013 for "Benghazi: Dying forSecurity" and "Green Energy Going Red."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The consumer of news is “pummeled by countless narratives—some based on grains of truth; others wholly invented for the audience.”. The author warns news consumers to be cautious even if all the media outlets are parroting the same line: “Today, if enough pundits, operatives, and media parrot the same narrative, it becomes incorporated into the fabric of the news as an accepted fact.”. And yet, smear campaigns are not new—they are as old as the Republic: “Our founding fathers knew very well the power of a sharp character assassination . “The Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination showed both sides that the best way to fight a smear might not be to take a defensive posture—but to mount an offensive countersmear.”. Attkisson is careful to define what she means by “smear.” It’s not the dissemination of falsehoods, so much as exaggeration: “Expert smear artists take a sprinkle of truth—in this case Imus’s objectionable comments—and pervert it into a weapon of mass destruction to advance a larger goal, often political or financial.” Smear campaigns take something that is true and "amplify a misdeed out of proportion.”. For me, one of the most fascinating sections was the explanation of a variation of smear called “Astroturf.” In this variation, the pros pretend they are ordinary folks: “Paid interests disguised as ordinary people troll assigned topics, news sites, reporters, blogs, and social media for the purpose of posting comments that spin and confuse.” The idea is to “give the impression there’s widespread support for or against an agenda when there’s not.”. Attkisson concludes with this sobering warning: “One thing you can count on is that most every image that crosses your path has been put there for a reason."
"It provides the insight and evidence that we've come to expect in her reporting, and opens the curtains of the smear industry so we might peer in and be prepared to spot when the smear is in play (hint...it's everywhere!)."
"This book documents political smear campaigns, behind-the-scenes coordination between the press and political campaigns and other special interests, and efforts by our own government to manipulate the news, influence public opinion, and punish whistleblowers. Although some events in the book go back to the 1990's, most of the information pertains to events of the last ten years, with the emphasis on the 2016 presidential campaign and its aftermath. Worst of all, our own government seems to be an active player in much of this. Many op-eds that you read on the editorial page are not written by the person whose byline appears beneath them, but by activists working for political campaigns, corporations, and special-interest groups. The Obama Department of Justice and other Obama agencies targeted reporters, stonewalled investigations, and maintained behind-the-scenes relationships with special interests."

To cover up their insidious fascist agenda, Democrats loudly accuse President Trump and other Republicans of being Nazis—an obvious lie, considering the GOP has been fighting the Democrats over slavery, genocide, racism and fascism from the beginning. He expertly exonerates President Trump and his supporters, then uncovers the Democratic Left's long, cozy relationship with Nazism: how the racist and genocidal acts of early Democrats inspired Adolf Hitler's campaign of death; how fascist philosophers influenced the great 20th century lions of the American Left; and how today's anti-free speech, anti-capitalist, anti-religious liberty, pro-violence Democratic Party is a frightening simulacrum of the Nazi Party. In The Big Lie , D'Souza shows that the Democratic Left's orchestrated campaign to paint President Trump and conservatives as Nazis to cover up its own fascism is, in fact, the biggest lie of all. He is also a former White House domestic policy analyst and research scholar at the American Enterprise Institution and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Could not put it down, if your a conservative you need to school yourself, this book is a big start!"
"The historical comparisons were very interesting."
"D'Sousa is brillant...he ties the past history to what is happening in today's world."
"Great opinions with supporting facts!"
"Dinesh D'Souza researched this book from stem to stern and I was amazed by his extraordinary expose of Leftism's influence on the National Socialists of Germany."
"It is long, and long winded, including giving the reader more than enough real world examples of things like real events in which the left essentially has mimicked fascist and Nazi tactics, such as not respecting outcomes of democratic elections and physical threats to the other side."
"Outstanding book."
"D'Souza swiftly takes you from the origins of National Socialism to today's Antifa without skipping a beat."

In Hillary's America , D’Souza reveals the sordid truth about Hillary and the secret history of the Democratic Party, including: how Democrats transitioned from pro-slavery to pro-enslavement; the long-standing Democratic political war against women; how Hillary Clinton’s political mentor was, literally, a cold-blooded gangster; how the Clintons and other Democrats see foreign policy not in terms of national interest, but in terms of personal profit; how Democratically controlled cities have turned into hotbeds of crime and corruption; and much, much more. Find out what shady backroom Democrat dealers taught Hillary Clinton her particular brand of corrupt party politics. After eight years of Obama, four yearsor possibly eight yearsof Hillary Clinton as president of the United States would so utterly transform America as to make it unrecognizable. It will, in fact, be the fulfillment of a dream the Democratic Party has had from the beginning a dream of stealing America for the politically favored few. America’s only hope, says D'Souza, is a resurgent Republican Party, the party of Lincoln and Reagan; the partyhistorically and todayof civil rights, economic opportunity, and freedom; the party that, under the banner of Donald J. Trump, truly has the opportunity to not only save America but make it great again.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Of those 100 e-mails 8 were classified Top Secret, 8 were classified Confidential, and the rest - some 94 of them - were classified Secret AT THE TIME THEY WERE SENT (Check this out by using a search engine). Moreover, Hillary Clinton has a rap sheet three decades long - Using her position as Secretary of State to induce foreign governments and corporations to pay Bill Clinton for speeches for fees running as much as $750,000 per speech, enriching the Clinton Foundation in an effort to engage in influence peddling (which, by the way, is illegal under Federal Law), IRSgate, Filegate, Chinagate, keeping a lid on Bill Clinton's "bimbo eruptions," using the Lincoln Bedroom as a fundraising perk for mega-donors, White House Travel Officegate, Cattlegate, Whitewater, Hillary's "missing" Rose Law firm billing records, Pardongate, Benghazi (failure to go to the aid of and defend American lives in Libya), and her radical mentor Saul Alinsky."
"Let’s be realistic… She CLAIMS to be for women’s rights, while being married to a rapist (with MANY accusations against him) who had MANY extramarital affairs, she accepted MILLIONS from the Middle East (where women are treated like dogs), she freed a child rapist and then LAUGHED about it, and now she’s the face of Women’s rights and equality? - Did you know that the 13th amendment (the amendment that abolished slavery) was passed with overwhelming Republican support? Doesn’t quite fit the the CNN portrayed “Democrats are the second coming” narrative, DOES IT? Folks, pay attention to what is going on in the news and media these days."
"Again, Dinesh D'Souza has written a well documented book on why we must stop the Democratic Party and its presumptive candidate Hillary Clinton from keeping the Whitehouse."
"very long and detailed, but all true."
"CRITICAL TRUTHS!!!!"
Best Constitutional Law

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner New York Times Bestseller. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year. A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016. A Chicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016. From the Civil War to our combustible present, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. A sobering primer on the myriad ways African American resilience and triumph over enslavement, Jim Crow and intolerance have been relentlessly defied by the very institutions entrusted to uphold our democracy." "White Rage is a riveting and disturbing history that begins with Reconstruction and lays bare the efforts of whites in the South and North alike to prevent emancipated black people from achieving economic independence, civil and political rights, personal safety, and economic opportunity." "White Rage belongs in a place of honor on the shelf next to other seminal books about the African-American experience such as James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time , Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns , and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow ." "[A] powerful survey of American history as seen in the violent white reactions to black progress, from Reconstruction to the great migration to the current political landscape." "Anderson has shown, with her well-sourced (she has several hundred detailed footnotes) and readable book, why the fights over race and access to the perquisites of American citizenship grind on . White Rage lends perspective and insight for those of us who are willing to confront, study and learn from the present situation in this country." Though stretching a stand-alone essay into an extended study doesn’t work very often, White Rage operates efficiently and elegantly, offering readers new intelligence about American experience. Like a meticulous prosecutor assembling her case, Anderson lays out a profoundly upsetting vision of an America driven to waves of reactionary white anger whenever it’s confronted with black achievement." Reading through all the frightfully inventive ways in which America makes racial inequality a matter of law (and order) has a dizzying effect: like watching a quick-cut montage of social injustice spanning nearly half a millennium." "[F]or readers who want to understand the sense of grievance and pain that many African Americans feel today, White Rage offers a clearly written and well-thought-out overview of an aspect of U.S. history with which the country is still struggling to come to terms." "Anderson’s mosaic of white outrage deserves contemplation by anyone interested in understanding U.S. race relations, past and present." We are tethered to history, and with White Rage , Anderson adeptly highlights both that past and the tenacious grip race holds on the present. "White Rage is a harrowing account of our national history during the century and a half since the Civil War--even more troubling for what it exposes about our present, our deep and abiding racial divide. - Natasha Trethewey, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for NATIVE GUARD and Two-term Poet Laureate of the United States. - David Von Drehle, author of RISE TO GREATNESS: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND AMERICA'S MOST PERILOUS YEAR.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It grew out of a 2014 Washington Post oped article Professor Carol Anderson of the Emory History Department wrote in response to the Ferguson, Missouri protests but also has root in her revulsion for the racially motivated attacks on the character and policies of President Obama. I accept her central argument that Black economic and political advances since the Civil War have prompted systematic politically motivated backlash. Professor Anderson’s best chapters are on the Great Migration and resistance to the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown decision repudiating the legal doctrine of separate but equal segregation. Booth heard Lincoln lay out this proposal, told a compatriot it meant Black equality and vowed to “put him over.” We can’t know what Lincoln would have done in the face of persistent resistance to emancipation and Reconstruction but I believe it would have resembled the Civil Rights measures the Republican Congress passed. It does not distinguish between the cautious and unimaginative Waite Court (1874-88) and the hostile Fuller Court (1888-1910) which repudiated every opinion the Waite Court issued that could—with vigorous DOJ prosecution—have protected at least federal voting rights It lets the Court serve as a scapegoat for increasing Northern voter resistance to vigorous Army and DOJ suppression of terrorism. Anderson also neglected the 1890 failure of a Republican Senate majority to pass voting rights enforcement legislation the House crafted to build on Waite Court Fifteenth Amendment opinions."
"The book indicts both northern and southern states, which complicates the grade-school stereotype of a racist white South and an innocent, non-racist white North."
"A well-researched and deeply disturbing book about how states and the federal government have pursued an intentional, comprehensive and ultimately devastatingly effective effort to disenfranchise African Americans from, literally, almost the day after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. “…white rage has undermined democracy, warped the Constitution, weakened the nation’s ability to compete economically, squandered billions of dollars on baseless incarcerations, rendered an entire region sick, poor and woefully undereducated, and left cities nothing less than devastated."
Best Journalism Writing Reference

The New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled pulls back the curtain on the shady world of opposition research and reveals the dirty tricks those in power use to influence your opinions. Behind most major political stories in the modern era, there is an agenda; an effort by opposition researchers, spin doctors, and outside interests to destroy an idea or a person. Now, the hard-hitting investigative reporter shares her inside knowledge, revealing how the Smear takes shape and who its perpetrators are—including Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal and, most influential of all, "right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin" ( National Review ) political operative David Brock and his Media Matters for America empire. Maybe you watched someone on the news report that Donald Trump is a racist misogynist, read that Hillary Clinton used a body double, or heard that Bernie Sanders cheated in the primary. Now hard-hitting investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, the New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled , takes you behind the scenes of the modern smear machine, exploring how operatives from corporations and both sides of the political aisle have manipulated a complicit mainstream media to make disinformation, rumor, and dirty tricks defining traits of our democracy. Pulling back the curtain on the shady world of opposition research, she reveals how those in power create well-funded, organized attack campaigns to take down their enemies and influence your opinions, offering a detailed examination of the think tanks, super PACs, LLCs, and nonprofits that have become the hidden backers of some of the biggest smears in American politics. Attkisson hosts the Sunday morning national TV news program "Full Measure," which focuses on investigative and accountability reporting.For thirty years, Attkisson was a correspondent and anchor at CBS News, PBS, CNN and in local news.In 2013, she received an Emmy Award for OutstandingInvestigative Journalism for her reporting on "The Business of Congress," whichincluded an undercover investigation into fundraising by Republican freshmen.She received two other Emmy nominations in 2013 for "Benghazi: Dying forSecurity" and "Green Energy Going Red."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The consumer of news is “pummeled by countless narratives—some based on grains of truth; others wholly invented for the audience.”. The author warns news consumers to be cautious even if all the media outlets are parroting the same line: “Today, if enough pundits, operatives, and media parrot the same narrative, it becomes incorporated into the fabric of the news as an accepted fact.”. And yet, smear campaigns are not new—they are as old as the Republic: “Our founding fathers knew very well the power of a sharp character assassination . “The Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination showed both sides that the best way to fight a smear might not be to take a defensive posture—but to mount an offensive countersmear.”. Attkisson is careful to define what she means by “smear.” It’s not the dissemination of falsehoods, so much as exaggeration: “Expert smear artists take a sprinkle of truth—in this case Imus’s objectionable comments—and pervert it into a weapon of mass destruction to advance a larger goal, often political or financial.” Smear campaigns take something that is true and "amplify a misdeed out of proportion.”. For me, one of the most fascinating sections was the explanation of a variation of smear called “Astroturf.” In this variation, the pros pretend they are ordinary folks: “Paid interests disguised as ordinary people troll assigned topics, news sites, reporters, blogs, and social media for the purpose of posting comments that spin and confuse.” The idea is to “give the impression there’s widespread support for or against an agenda when there’s not.”. Attkisson concludes with this sobering warning: “One thing you can count on is that most every image that crosses your path has been put there for a reason."
"It provides the insight and evidence that we've come to expect in her reporting, and opens the curtains of the smear industry so we might peer in and be prepared to spot when the smear is in play (hint...it's everywhere!)."
"This book documents political smear campaigns, behind-the-scenes coordination between the press and political campaigns and other special interests, and efforts by our own government to manipulate the news, influence public opinion, and punish whistleblowers. Although some events in the book go back to the 1990's, most of the information pertains to events of the last ten years, with the emphasis on the 2016 presidential campaign and its aftermath. Worst of all, our own government seems to be an active player in much of this. Many op-eds that you read on the editorial page are not written by the person whose byline appears beneath them, but by activists working for political campaigns, corporations, and special-interest groups. The Obama Department of Justice and other Obama agencies targeted reporters, stonewalled investigations, and maintained behind-the-scenes relationships with special interests."
Best Practical Politics

Winner of the Lincoln Prize. Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Abraham Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Goodwin makes the case for Lincoln's political genius by examining his relationships with three men he selected for his cabinet, all of whom were opponents for the Republican nomination in 1860: William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates. Yet Lincoln not only convinced them to join his administration--Seward as secretary of state, Chase as secretary of the treasury, and Bates as attorney general--he ultimately gained their admiration and respect as well. Ten years in the making, this engaging work reveals why "Lincoln's road to success was longer, more tortuous, and far less likely" than the other men, and why, when opportunity beckoned, Lincoln was "the best prepared to answer the call." Lincoln may have been "the indispensable ingredient of the Civil War," but these three men were invaluable to Lincoln and they played key roles in keeping the nation intact. Here, Doris Kearns Goodwin profiles five of the key players in her book, four of whom contended for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination and all of whom later worked together in Lincoln's cabinet. When Lincoln stepped in, Chase tendered his resignation as he had three times before, but this time Lincoln stunned Chase by calling his bluff and accepting the offer. Abraham Lincoln When Lincoln won the Republican presidential nomination in 1860 he seemed to have come from nowhere--a backwoods lawyer who had served one undistinguished term in the House of Representatives and lost two consecutive contests for the U.S. Senate. Though the feisty New Yorker would continue to debate numerous issues with Lincoln in the years ahead, exactly as Lincoln had hoped and needed him to do, Seward would become his closest friend, advisor, and ally in the administration. After losing to Lincoln he vowed, in his diary, to decline a cabinet position if one were to be offered, but with the country "in trouble and danger" he felt it was his duty to accept when Lincoln asked him to be attorney general. Goodwin marvels at Lincoln's ability to co-opt three better-born, better-educated rivals—each of whom had challenged Lincoln for the 1860 Republican nomination. The three were New York senator William H. Seward, who became secretary of state; Ohio senator Salmon P. Chase, who signed on as secretary of the treasury and later was nominated by Lincoln to be chief justice of the Supreme Court; and Missouri's "distinguished elder statesman" Edward Bates, who served as attorney general. On another front, Goodwin's spotlighting of the president's three former rivals tends to undercut that Lincoln's most essential Cabinet-level contacts were not with Seward, Chase and Bates, but rather with secretaries of war Simon Cameron and Edwin Stanton, and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"With her usual talent, Doris Goodwin found a wonderful new angle to illuminate a great man."
"Excellent book with tremendous detail yet very easy to read."
"This, along with several other books about Lincoln and the civil war that I’ve read all confirm one thing - our politics today, bad as they may seem, are polite and courteous compared the the 1800’s."
"This book more than any others I have read on the subject, show Lincoln's intellectual growth over time. I've read so many books about this man, but this book is far and away the deepest."
"Studying Lincoln's leadership through the prism of his coopted rivals is a rewarding journey into the "how" of Lincoln's success."
"This has become one of my favorite books."
"Having written a few books myself, I have to tip my hat to Doris Kearns Goodwin's tenacity to details and attention to historical accuracy."
"Very fascinating story of Lincoln and his cabinet!"
Best Campaigns & Elections

Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. In these pages, she describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. It is worth reading.” — The New York Times “ What Happened is a raw and bracing book, a guide to our political arena.” — The Washington Post “The writing in What Happened is engaging — Clinton is charming and even funny at times, without trying to paint herself in too flattering of a light…. While What Happened records the perspective of a pioneer who beat an unprecedented path that stopped just shy of the White House, it also covers territory that many women will recognize.... She demonstrates that she can mine her situation for humor.” — People “This is an important book, and anyone who’s worried by what happened last November 8 should pick it up.” — Entertainment Weekly Hillary Rodham Clinton is the first woman in US history to become the presidential nominee of a major political party.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"She was less convincing on this front as virtually nothing Sanders said against HRC during the primary battle was new; his criticisms of HRC were general talking points before Sanders ever entered the contest. The book whitewashes the DNC's actions against Sanders during the primary, actions that turned a good number of Sanders supporters (HRC continues use of the odious "Bernie Bros." epithet) against her. HRC praises the hard work of Donna Brazile but fails to mention how Brazile was caught stealing debate questions (for the debate with Sanders) from CNN and then leaking those questions to HRC and not to Sanders. What is telling in HRC's memoir and analysis are her own blind spots, her weakness as a campaigner who fails to inspire, her over-reliance on her status as "first female Presidential nominee from a major party" (53% of white women voted for Trump, but HRC doesn't examine why), and her refusal to acknowledge how the DNC, during the primary, alienated the progressive voters she would later need to win the general election. (Even here, though, we have figures now indicating that 12% of Sanders supporters went over to Trump, whereas in 2008, after HRC lost the primary to Obama, 24% of her supporters went over to McCain. In other words, Sanders supporters were still more supportive of HRC than HRC's supporters were of Obama by 2-to-1.)."
"I wrote a verified purchase review and it has been deleted 3 times."
"I'm a non-partisan who has actually read this book and have to agree with many of the negative reviews here."
"what happened to the negative reviews?"
"In my previous review I referenced her book Hard Choices...."Believe it or not I actually liked this book.""
"I voted for Bill Clinton in both Presidential elections and voted for Hillary Clinton against Trump last year. I think that there are some good things to be said about Hillary Clinton. But still, this book seems to crystallize for me a lot of the problems that I have with Hillary Clinton at this moment in time, and the problems that I have with the Democratic party, and in general why I think that they are currently doing so badly. Although Clinton does attempt in the book to explain why she lost the election, in the end, she really seems to have no idea. If instead the book had been called "What Campaigning in the 2016 Election Was Like for Me," likely I would feel comfortable giving the book another star. So if the goal of the reader is to learn more about Hillary Clinton, as a person, then perhaps this book is worth reading. What the book does not do is to provide any reasoned or persuasive discussion on what I see as the key questions that political leaders need to be discussing with regard to the 2016 election and the current state of affairs. In my opinion, the biggest question that Clinton does not discuss at all in this book is how much the Democratic party has turned all of its focus toward the goal of making rich people (like Jeff Bezos, no?). Not once in the book does she consider the possibility that perhaps the reason that Sanders was popular was because the Democratic party (as well as the Republican party) had focused too much of its attention on the 1% (or, more specifically, the 0.0001%) and had left the rest of the population out in the cold. In general, the impression that I get from this book about Clinton in general - in terms of her political life and her personal life - is that she believes she is right about everything, that she is very very defensive about the idea that she is right about everything, and that she is very slow to change in the face of new information. All of those are the LAST things that I would use if I got sick, and the idea of Hillary Clinton forcing them on me anyway makes me wonder what other kinds of outmoded, counterproductive things she would have tried to force on the American public had she become President."
"I voted for her."
Best Leadership

The story is told through the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft—a close relationship that strengthens both men before it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that divides their wives, their children, and their closest friends, while crippling the progressive wing of the Republican Party, causing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected, and changing the country’s history. The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. An Amazon Best Book of the Month, November 2013: In an era when cooperation between the national media and the US government seems laughable, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s timely 100-year look backward explores the origins of the type of muckraking journalism that helped make America a better country. Focusing on the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and his successor, William Howard Taft -- one-time colleagues and friends who later became sworn foes--Goodwin chronicles the birth of an activist press, which occurred when five of the nation’s best-ever journalists converged at McClure’s magazine and helped usher in the Progressive era. At times slow and overly meticulous, with a lot of backstory and historical minutiae, this is nonetheless a lush, lively, and surprisingly urgent story--a series of entwined stories, actually, with headstrong and irascible characters who had me pining for journalism’s earlier days.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Our struggles as a country are made clear here with the story of the progressive movement and insight into a country that wanted law and order, fairness, freedom of speech and religion( from or of), and the people who tried to strangle those values, as well as the people who fought with intelligence and integrity to fortify and insure, and foster the individual citizen's rights. The same families are involved in current oligarthic agendas, and our rights and power are being squelched by a country that is currently killing individual rights for the power of the corporation and the ultra rich."
"Although I was more familiar with Roosevelt, Taft was a fascinating person as well."
"Roosevelt's decision to fight Taft for the presidency he earlier helped Taft win tells us much about Teddy."
"The story line about the writers is also good, particularly their role on influencing Roosevelt."
"With all the biographical background on Roosevelt and Taft and the various players in the investigative journalism movement (Sam McClure, Ida Tarbell, William White, Ray Baker, etc."
"Lots of information about the times and the figures that I wasn't aware of."
"This is a well crafted story of a time of change that really laid the foundations of how we live today."