Rushmore’s Odd Man Out

Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition by Jean M. Yarbrough. University of Kansas Press, 2012. Cloth, 337 pp., $40.Just what is the “American political tradition?” Better than sixty years ago the noted American historian, Richard Hofstadter, tried to...

The Misremembered President

Coolidge by Amity Shlaes. HarperCollins, 2013. Hardback, 565 pages, $35. Coolidge. The title is as spare and direct as the subject. Building on her previous book, The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes might have added “The Forgotten President.” Then again, perhaps she...

Uncle Walt and the Lost Era of Network News

Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley. HarperCollins, 2012. Hardcover, 819 pages, $35.Somewhere near the far turn of this absurdly long and generally fawning biography of the “most trusted man in America,” it seems that something of real importance suddenly dawned on...

Knowing It All

Journals: 1952–2000 by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., edited by Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger. The Penguin Press (New York) 894 pp., $40.00, 2007Historians of the American presidency are notorious for composing lists. The five greatest presidents … the five...

The Prince Redeemed

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert Novak. Crown Forum (New York) 662 pp., $29.95 cloth, 2007 If Hollywood is home to “kiss and tell” memoirs, should Washington be the source of the “kiss up and tell” variety? Not if you’re the...