John Feinstein. Vanishing
Act. ©2006 The two principal characters are a boy and a
girl 13 years old and the writing style seems geared for that age, but it’s
still an interesting read because it takes you inside the world of pro tennis at
the US Open. I don’t think I’ve ever
read a novel in which real people like Bud Collins and Mary Carillo have
speaking parts and are integral parts of the story. Then there are two kidnappings, one player
and one agent, that are meant to affect the outcome of the tournament and the
size of the endorsement contracts for one of the players. May 2014
.
Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Wait Till Next Year.
©1997 I thought this was going to
be baseball, but after letting us know she was a fan and as a child used to
record whole games so that she could recreate them for her father, she moved
away into her biography. I quit before I
finished the first disk. April 2014
.
Doris Kearns Goodwin.
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the
Golden Age of Journalism. ©2013 This is the best work of history I have ever
read. The book is long, but while I was
reading it, I wished it could go on indefinitely. I was amazed at how closely the statements of
TR and, amazingly, Taft perfectly address the situation today. Even more
interesting is the collaboration of TR and Taft with the muckraking press in
launching the progressive movement and getting the vote for women. Perhaps my main conclusion when I finished
was that what this country needs today are S.S. McClure and his magazine; his
editor, John Sanborn Phillips; and Ida Tarbell and her journalist colleagues: Ray Stannard Baker, William Allen White, Lincoln
Steffens and many others. McClure and
his staff had incredible influence on what happened in
politics, economics and regulatory development. Their method was to amass
mountains of facts, which made believers of anyone who bothered to read them –
and many did. I don't think any progressive or liberal today,
not even Harold Meyerson or Robert Reich, has anything like their clout and
perhaps they shouldn't. I had not known
about the close friendship between TR and Taft that lasted until Taft’s
presidency when TR turned against him, because Taft was unwilling or unable to
continue TR’s progressive program to TR’s satisfaction. Considering the herd of dinosaurs in the
Senate, perhaps no one could have.
Nevertheless Taft accomplished a lot despite the opposition of his own
party. I had always thought that Taft
was a rock ribbed conservative but learned in this book that he was a
consistent progressive or liberal throughout his whole life. Perhaps my earlier impressions were a result
of an imperfect understanding of his loss of TR’s support during his
presidency. As for Kearns, perhaps she was following the lead of the muckrakers
when she amassed so much detail about family trees and legislative wrangling. The Bully
Pulpit brings the early 20th century to life and firmly establishes the
crucial importance of the press to Progressive politics. April 2014
.
David McCullough. John
Adams. ©2001 I already knew a lot about John Adams, but
McCullough has filled in the blanks and presented a complex portrait of this farmer,
family man, patriot, politician, diplomat and aspiring intellectual. Thank the lord for all those letters that everyone
wrote and almost everyone saved. As
early as 1765 Adams was already writing and publishing a work about American
rights and freedom, and it was that year that the Revolution really began,
occasioned by the Stamp Act. Jefferson
called Adams “the colossus of independence,” and with good reason. By 1774 he was already speaking and writing
that America should separate itself from England. In 1776 it was expected that he would write
the Declaration of Independence, but Adams proposed Jefferson because of his
eloquent style. In 1779 Adams wrote the
Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the oldest written
constitution in the world that is still in effect. Adams great contribution to the war effort
was the negotiation of several loans from Dutch bankers. In 1782, after a year of struggle to get the labyrinthine
Dutch government to recognize his credentials, Adams opened the first US
Embassy abroad. In 1784, he and
Jefferson worked together in Paris for 7 months and deepened the friendship
that had begun in Philadelphia during the war.
In 1785 he was appointed Ambassador to the Court
of St James's, where he received a correct but cool reception and opened an
American Embassy on Grosvenor Square where it remains to this day. While Adams was in London, Jefferson visited
for 7 weeks. During that visit the two
of them took a few days off for a trip to visit 20 English gardens and
historical sites. After his return to
America, Adams became the first vice-president and then a one term president,
losing to Jefferson in 1800 after a bitter campaign. It was in those years that America developed
its two party system, then the Federalists and the Republicans. Adams was a Federalist and Jefferson a
Republican. Later in that first decade of
the 1800s Adams began to move away from the Federalists as they increasingly
became the party of money and privilege.
Adams was a true democrat with a small “d” despite charges over the
years that he was a monarchist at heart. April 2014
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