BOOKS

Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary

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A veteran of the tumultuous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and now a USC Professor and President of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, Cowan has written a lively account of Theodore Roosevelt’s effort to have the Republican Party oust his one-time friend, President William Howard Taft, and install himself as its nominee for the White House in 1912. If you are a Theodore Roosevelt fan, be prepared for unpleasant surprises as he maneuvers to become the GOP standard bearer over the dead-political body of his protégé. Well researched and written with the gusto of someone who knows and loves politics, it’s a great read. Because the book focuses on Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft and ends at the Progressive Party Convention, pick up Lewis L. Gould’s Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics, before or after consuming Cowan’s excellent volume.
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After three years preparing The Triumph of William McKinley by reading very little but books, letters, articles and newspapers from the Gilded Age, I’m trying to get back into my regular routine, which I’ll chronicle here with an occasional review of what I’ve read.

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Are you a political junkie who loves campaigns?  Fond of reading history? 

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This is a powerful telling of America’s story on the day of the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center

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Hemingway, a senior editor at The Federalist, and Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director at the Judicial Crisis Network

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In the 1930’s at the height of The Great Depression, thousands of Americans journeyed to the Soviet Union, lured by the promise of jobs, prosperity and a new life in the Utopia created by Stalin’s Communist Party. 


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