Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada: A Biography (Shepperson Series in Nevada History) Review
Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada: A Biography (Shepperson Series in Nevada History) Review
Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight Against Civil Rights, 1938-1965 (Making the Modern South) Review
Few historical events lend themselves to such a sharp delineation between right and wrong as does the civil rights struggle. Consequently, many historical accounts of white resistance to civil rights legislation emphasize the ferocity of the opposition, from the Ole Miss riots to the depredations of Eugene "Bull" Conner's Birmingham police force to George Wallace's stand on the schoolhouse steps. While such hostile episodes frequently occurred in the Jim Crow South, civil rights adversaries also employed other, less confrontational but remarkably successful, tactics to deny equal rights to black Americans. In Delaying the Dream, Keith M. Finley explores gradations in the opposition by examining how the region's principal national spokesmen--its United States senators--addressed themselves to the civil rights question and developed a concerted plan of action to thwart legislation: the use of strategic delay.
Prior to World War II, Finley explains, southern senators recognized the fall of segregation as inevitable and consciously changed their tactics to delay, rather than prevent, defeat, enabling them to frustrate civil rights advances for decades. As public support for civil rights grew, southern senators transformed their arguments to limit the use of overt racism and appeal to northerners. They granted minor concessions on bills only tangentially related to civil rights while emasculating those with more substantive provisions. They garnered support by nationalizing their defense of sectional interests and linked their defense of segregation with constitutional principles to curry favor with non-southern politicians. While the senators achieved success at the federal level, Finley shows, they failed to challenge local racial agitators in the South, allowing extremism to flourish. The escalation of white assaults on peaceful protesters in the 1950s and 1960s finally prompted northerners to question southern claims of tranquility under Jim Crow. When they did, segregation came under direct attack, and the principles that had informed strategic delay became obsolete.
Finley's analysis goes beyond traditional images of the quest for racial equality--the heroic struggle, the southern extremism, the filibusters--to reveal another side to the conflict. By focusing on strategic delay and the senators' foresight in recognizing the need for this tactic, Delaying the Dream adds a fresh perspective to the canon on the civil rights era in modern American history.
The American Senator by Anthony Trollope Review
The Senator from Central Casting: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Thomas J. Dodd Review
David Koskoff's fascinating narrative tells the entire Dodd story, from early promise and achievement to the final years of decline and disgrace. Koskoff also connects the dots to reveal the underpinnings of the posthumous rehabilitation of Tom Dodd's reputation by his son, Senator Christopher Dodd.
Tom Dodd's early career included a stint with the FBI, where he was involved in a shoot-out with mythic bank robber John Dillinger; and later a year as the chief trial attorney for the prosecution at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial of 1945-6. Dodd's glamorous past and his distinguished Nuremberg service propelled him into the U.S. House of Representatives, then the U.S. Senate.
As a Senator, Dodd was known as a mesmerizing orator, most famous for his virulent opposition to all things communist, particularly to rapprochement with the Soviet Union. In addition to serving the anti-communist cause, he served himself, supporting a lavish lifestyle by milking his many conflicts of interest, and pocketing campaign funds. In his seventh year as Senator, his onetime acolyte James Boyd, later his administrative assistant, became his Judas. Together with Dodd's personal secretary and his office manager---the people who knew Dodd the best and who owed him the most---Boyd secreted out of Dodd's office 7,000 sheets of documents, which he turned over to muckraking journalist Jack Anderson. Anderson's 100 columns about Dodd led to his censure by the Senate for financial improprieties, by a vote of 92 to 5.
Many years later, with the financial backing of multi-billionaire John W. Kluge, Christopher Dodd was able to obscure this history by establishing the Nobel-like Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights and securing the naming of a new showplace building at the University of Connecticut as The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. In death, Tom Dodd became a symbol of civic virtue and the fight against tyranny.
Exhaustively researched, richly illustrated, The Senator from Central Casting tells a compelling story of human frailty and realpolitik.
The Education of a Senator Review
In a world where the political scene is wall-to-wall scandal, the honesty, faith, and devotion to hard work revealed by this memoir give the lie to Mark Twain's cynical statement, "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress".
Dirksen's insights into his early life and development are a treasure with riches for all readers. They might even prove instructive to those in today's halls of power.
Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies Review
The Senator's Other Daughter (Belles of Lordsburg #1) Review
Within the locket hanging near her heart is the secret that's broken it.
A life of peace and seclusion as the unknown Miss Denison. It's what Grace longed for even before her father banished her from Washington, D.C.
She just may have found it in Lordsburg, New Mexico--the small railroad town where people hide until the world stops looking. A place to send black sheep, skeletons in the closet, rebellious sons ... and wayward daughters whose secrets could ruin a father's precious political career.
Yet Grace's cherished anonymity is soon lost when she gets caught in the middle of a huge ruckus. And her life is anything but peaceful thanks to an ornery pet at her boarding house, a precocious young Mexican boy, and a cowboy who makes her want to run to him and from him at the same time.
When he learns the secret within her locket, will he break her heart too?
The Accidental Senator Review
Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond Review
Breaking nearly eight decades of silence, Essie Mae Washington–Williams comes forward with a story of unique historical magnitude and incredible human drama. Her father, the late Strom Thurmond, was once the nation's leading voice for racial segregation (one of his signature political achievements was his 24–hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, done in the name of saving the South from "mongrelization"). Her mother, however, was a black teenager named Carrie Butler who worked as a maid on the Thurmond family's South Carolina plantation.
Set against the explosively changing times of the civil rights movement, this poignant memoir recalls how she struggled with the discrepancy between the father she knew–one who was financially generous, supportive of her education, even affectionate–and the Old Southern politician, railing against greater racial equality, who refused to acknowledge her publicly. From her richly told narrative, as well as the letters she and Thurmond wrote to each other over the years, emerges a nuanced, fascinating portrait of a father who counseled his daughter about her dreams and goals, and supported her in reaching them–but who was unwilling to break with the values of his Dixiecrat constituents.
With elegance, dignity, and candor, Washington–Williams gives us a chapter of American history as it has never been written before–told in a voice that will be heard and cherished by future generations.
Ottawa Senators: Great Stories from the NHL's First Dynasty (An Amazing Stories Book) Review
The Controversy Between Senator Brooks And "+john," Archbishop Of New York: Growing Out Of The Speech Of Senator Brooks On The Church Property Bill : In The N.y. State Senate, March 6, 1855 Review
The Senator's Aide Review
The Caning of Senator Sumner (American Stories) Review
Shooting from the Lip: The Life of Senator Al Simpson Review
Shortly before Wyoming’s Alan K. Simpson was elected majority whip of the United States Senate, he decided to keep a journal. “I am going to make notes when I get home in the evening, as to what happened during each day.” Now the senator’s longtime chief of staff, Donald Loren Hardy, has drawn extensively on Simpson’s personal papers and nineteen-volume diary to write this unvarnished account of a storied life and political career.
Simpson gave full authorial control to Hardy, telling him, “Don, just tell the truth, the whole truth, as you always have. Leave teeth, hair, and eyeballs on the floor, if that results from telling the truth.” Taking Simpson at his word, Hardy shows readers a thrill-seeking teenager in Cody and a tireless politician who has thoroughly enjoyed his work. Full of entertaining tales and moments of historical significance, Shooting from the Lip offers a privileged and revealing backstage view of late-twentieth century American politics.
Hardy’s richly anecdotal account reveals the roles Simpson played during such critical events as the Iran-Contra scandal and Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings. It divulges the senator’s candid views of seven American presidents and scores of other national and world luminaries. Simpson is a politician unfettered by partisanship. Among President George H. W. Bush’s closest compatriots, he was also a close friend and admirer of Senator Ted Kennedy and was never afraid to publicly challenge the positions or tactics of fellow lawmakers, Democratic and Republican alike.
Simpson’s ability to use truth and humor as both “sword and shield,” combined with his years of experience and issue mastery, has led to an impressive post-Senate career. In 2010, for example, he co-chaired President Barack Obama’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Shooting from the Lip portrays a statesman punching sacred cows, challenging the media, and grappling with some of the nation’s most difficult challenges.