The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H White

This book has long been considered one of the seminal writings on American politics. Theodore White documented the 1960 campaigns of Nixon and Kennedy as well as their challengers for their respective parties nominations.

White, who I have been reading about in the David Halberstam book The Powers That Be, began as a journalist in with Time magazine under Henry Luce. His writing and book on China made him famous.

This book started a new chapter in his life. Later he wrote similar books about the 64, 68, and 1972 elections.

Perhaps it is because I have read several books on Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and the major players in the 1960 election. I am not sure why. This book, however, is just not that good. Maybe the more modern political writing is just better or more my style but as much as I wanted to like this, as much as I wanted to be reverant to something that has been spoken of as some of the best political writing ever, I cannot. This book is just not very good.

Mad As Hell by Dominic Sandbrook

This recently published book tells the tale of the United States in the 1970's what Sandbrook calls the rise of the populist right. Sandbrook, the author of several timepiece British histories captures the 1970's culturally, economically and most of all politically.

I read the book and enjoyed it and yet in no way would I call this a must read. It was an adequate history that broke no new ground. I did not find there any new look at the cultural impact of rock and roll or the ERA movement. In short if one had read no history of the seventies this might be an adequate place to stop but how many people with no background would be reading this book.

The bar is set pretty high for this type of book as some great books have been written, the best far and away in my opinion being David Halberstam book The Fifties. Of course Sandbrook is no Halberstam. Few are.

The one thing you do come away with in this book is the absolute failure of Jimmy Carter's Presidency. Taking a look at his administration should be good advice for anybody who thinks it is easy to govern as an " outsider" or that a President with his party in control of both houses is a lock to get his agenda through. Of course Carter lived in the pre filubuster as government practices of today, no Carter's problems were his own party and his evident belief that he did not need them.

Thinking of interest rates of 20 percent and inflation in double digits annually in comparison with how things are now ( and how tough they seem now) makes us realize how the late seventies were a very rough time in America.

An interesting book but certainly nothing new.