Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968

Godfrey Hodgson

4.1/5 ( ratings)

For those who can bear to face it again, here is a report on the '68 Presidential campaign by three British journalists who covered it for the London Times. Beginning with the foreboding events of 3/31-4/6, they plunge onward thru the primaries to the conventions, paying rather less attention to the anti-climactic Nixon-Humphrey bout which followed. Using the mass-psychoanalytic approach developed by the better journalism since '63, the authors probe the styles & personalities of the major figures, & interpret phenomena such as Daley, Abby Hoffman & the Kennedy intellectuals. They comment on American violence, on the role of the media & on the conflict between rhetoric & reality in American life. Their insights will not startle readers of liberal-left periodicals, but they write with wit & concision, & have some sharp moments, as in their dissection of Johnson's Vietnam advisers, or in their remarks on Mayor Daley's Newspeak version of the Chicago police frolic. Their acquaintance with American history & idiom is impressive. Some flaws: an attempt to say too much & a paucity of straight political analysis which renders the book less valuable as campaign history than the White studies on '60 & '64. Still, until the mists clear further, this will serve to keep alive the drama of a fantastic & frightening election year.--Kirkus

Language: English

Pages: 830

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Viking Press (NY)

Release: May 01, 1969

ISBN: 0670119911

ISBN 13: 9780670119912

An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968

Godfrey Hodgson

4.1/5 ( ratings)

For those who can bear to face it again, here is a report on the '68 Presidential campaign by three British journalists who covered it for the London Times. Beginning with the foreboding events of 3/31-4/6, they plunge onward thru the primaries to the conventions, paying rather less attention to the anti-climactic Nixon-Humphrey bout which followed. Using the mass-psychoanalytic approach developed by the better journalism since '63, the authors probe the styles & personalities of the major figures, & interpret phenomena such as Daley, Abby Hoffman & the Kennedy intellectuals. They comment on American violence, on the role of the media & on the conflict between rhetoric & reality in American life. Their insights will not startle readers of liberal-left periodicals, but they write with wit & concision, & have some sharp moments, as in their dissection of Johnson's Vietnam advisers, or in their remarks on Mayor Daley's Newspeak version of the Chicago police frolic. Their acquaintance with American history & idiom is impressive. Some flaws: an attempt to say too much & a paucity of straight political analysis which renders the book less valuable as campaign history than the White studies on '60 & '64. Still, until the mists clear further, this will serve to keep alive the drama of a fantastic & frightening election year.--Kirkus

Language: English

Pages: 830

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Viking Press (NY)

Release: May 01, 1969

ISBN: 0670119911

ISBN 13: 9780670119912

More books from Godfrey Hodgson

The Myth of American Exceptionalism

3.4/5 ( ratings)

The Gentleman From New York : Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Biography

3.5/5 ( ratings)

America in Our Time: From World War II to Nixon What Happened and Why

JFK and LBJ: The Last Two Great Presidents

3.5/5 ( ratings)

The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America

3.5/5 ( ratings)

The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, 1867-1950

Do You Sincerely Want to Be Rich?: The Full Story of Bernard Cornfeld and I.O.S.

3.2/5 ( ratings)

A New Grand Tour: How Europe's Great Cities Made Our World

3.7/5 ( ratings)

People's Century, 20th: From The Dawn Of The Century To The Start Of The Cold War

4.4/5 ( ratings)

All things to all men : the false promise of the modern American presidency

Rate this book!

Write a review?