HUP 2008 Election: The History

Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans; Anthony F. C. Wallace; “No one...has focused so sharply and has brought together the scattered pieces of Jefferson's changing thoughts so lucidly.”
—Washington Times

My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams; Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor, Editors; “Hogan and Taylor...have given history buffs a treat—the most comprehensive edition of letters between two extremely lively writers, America's second president and his wife...This book is a treasure.”
—Publishers Weekly

The Life of Washington: Mason L. Weems; The effect of the “single, immortal, and dubious [cherry tree] anecdote,” and others like it, has made this book one of the most influential in the history of American folklore.

The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy; Bruce Ackerman; “Innovatively recasts the histories of parties, constitutional...and presidential politics...Rarely has a study of American history been more timely.”
—Publishers Weekly

The Declaration of Independence: A Global History; David Armitage; “A Best Book of the Year...David Armitage has shed new light on some of the most important questions about the foundations of the modern world by examining a document that is both time-bound and timeless.”—Times Literary Supplement

The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy; David Kaiser; Neither a random event nor the act of a lone madman—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was an appalling and grisly conspiracy. This is the unvarnished story.

LBJ: Architect of American Ambition; Randall B. Woods; A distinguished historian of twentieth-century America, Woods offers a wholesale reappraisal and sweeping, authoritative account of the life of one of the most fascinating and complex U.S. presidents.

In Search of Roosevelt: Rexford G. Tugwell; FDR, the author comments, “was one of those individuals who, because he rose to leadership in times of crisis, threw a long shadow...He will continue to be a point of reference even when the inevitable processes of change have extinguished the problems he was so well suited to tackle.”

Stealing Lincoln's Body: Thomas J. Craughwell; “Summoning the raw spirit of crime novels and horror stories, as well as the forensic detail of a coroner's inquest, Thomas J. Craughwell has turned the eerie final chapter of the Lincoln story into a guilty pleasure.”—Washington Post Book World

Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race; George M. Fredrickson; The most comprehensive and even-handed account available of Lincoln’s contradictory treatment of black Americans in matters of slavery in the South and basic civil rights in the North.

Private Lives/Public Consequences: Personality and Politics in Modern America; William H. Chafe; “Pinpoints the events and influences that helped 10 prominent 20th-century Americans become the people that history knows.”—Washington Post Book World

An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton; Richard A. Posner; “Best Book of the Year...[Posner's] analysis of the political crisis surrounding disclosure of Clinton's affair...[has] the tension of a thriller...scathing, unsparing, elegant and witty.”—New York Times Book Review

Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism; Robert Dallek; Few American politicians have enjoyed greater popularity than Reagan. Dallek presents a sharply drawn, richly detailed portrait of the man and his politics--from his childhood years through the California governorship to the first years of the presidency.

Henry Kissinger and the American Century: Jeremi Suri; “Probing thoughtfully into Kissinger's background and character, Suri sees the secretary as the Cold War's ultimate statesman. Eschewing polemics...this work explores what shaped and nurtured the phenomenon that was Henry Kissinger.”—The Atlantic

Powerful and Brutal Weapons: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Easter Offensive; Stephen P. Randolph; “The story of how the White House overrode the objections of the Pentagon brass and the field command in Vietnam—which resulted in a display of shock-and-awe that was as impressive in the realm of realpolitik as it was on the battlefield.”
—The Atlantic

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