Potus Geeks: What We Read in 2023
2023 wasn't my most prolific year when it came to reading. It was a year of personal transition that intruded into reading time. Still, there were 10 books that were read and reviewed in this community, some new, some old ones that I've been meaning to get to. Here's a look back at the books we read and reviewed in this community.
1. The Plots Against the President by Sally Denton (reviewed here in this community): The movie Amsterdam was loosely based on an alleged plot by business interests to overthrown the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In Sally Denton's 2012 book about the real threats to Roosevelt's presidency, she includes the one alleged by USMC General Smedley Butler (on whom Robert DiNiro's character is loosely based in the movie.) Denton also looks at other threats to FDR's presidency including from the left-wing populism from Louisiana demagogue Huey Long, from the anti-semitic "radio priest" Father Charles Couglin, from disaffected wealthy Democrats and Republicans alike who formed the so-called "American Liberty League" led by publisher William Randolph Hearst and by former Democratic presidential candidates Al Smith and John Davis. But the two threats most closely examined by Denton are the attempted assassination of President-Elect Roosevelt in Miami by Italian-American anarchist Giuseppe Zangara, and the "Wall Street Putsch" (also known as the "Business Plot"), an attempt by wealthy industrialists to convince the Butler to lead an insurrection to take over the White House by force if necessary. This book was very topical in light of the recent January 6, 2020 attempted insurrection.
2. The Fight of His Life-Inside Joe Biden's White House by Chris Whipple (reviewed here in this community): A new year and a new book about a new President. Whipple draws upon an amazing array of sources, including the present and many of the past White House Chiefs of Staff, to take the reader inside the current workings of the West Wing and Oval Office. Many of these sources were gathered for Whipple's earlier book, The Gatekeepers, about the Presidents' Chiefs of Staff, and the knowledge he has obtained from his previous research helps to provide considerable insight into the current administration's operations as President Joe Biden endeavors to lead the nation during one of the most polarizing times in the nation's history. It is extremely difficult to find an objective accounting of a current administration, and while Whipple's close-up of the Biden White House has its own biases, they are not so predominant as to take away from making this an interesting read. While some of Biden's critics question Biden's ability to serve as president at his age (one former chief of staff sees this as a major problem) Whipple does not really delve into this issue.
3. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Schlaes (reviewed here in this community)(reviewed here in this community): This is another "oldie" that I've been meaning to get around to reading. Written in 2008, it calls into question much of the conventional beliefs about how Roosevelt saved the nation from the greatest economic crisis in modern history. A simplified version of history suggests that Herbert Hoover dithered his way into the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt led the nation out of it. Shlaes takes an objective look at this assumption, and analyses the question of whether or not Roosevelt's policies brought about an end to the depression or prolonged it. Partisans will look for heros and villains in every political crisis, but the truth is almost always much more nuanced than that, and Shlaes looks in depth at the occurrances and the politics of the 1930s from the stock market crash of 1929 and the US army's mishandling of the Bonus March incident, to the election of Roosevelt and his constant "experimentation" as he tried various strategies, many inconsistent with others, in order to spend, tax or make war with business in order to bring about an end to the nation's misery.Shlaes offers a fascinating and thorough account of the era, and shares her excellent research from Roosevelt's inner circle. In 2008, when this book was published, it was victim to the polarization of the era, with conservaties seeing it a scathing indictment of the tax and spend polirices of the Roosevelt administration, and liberals seeing it as a hatchet job on the iconic FDR. But reading this book today in 2023, it is reasonable to conclude that neither of these are fair assessments. Shlaes is quick to give Roosevelt credit for his successful policies such as the bank holiday. Her criticm of programs such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and his plan to "pack" the Supreme Court are in generally supported by historians of both stripes, and even Roosevelt himself was said to acknowledge that the NIRA was a mistake. It is hard to argue with much of her analysis, especially through the lens of hindsight.
4. Joseph Smith for President by Spencer McBride (reviewed here in this community): Before there was Mitt Romney, another member of the Church of Jesus Christ or Latter-day Saints ran for President, the prophet himself, Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith is famous for being the founder of the Church that is better known as the Mormons, a movement founded after Smith was said to have experienced a series of visions which he believed to be divinely inspired. Declaring himself to be a prophet, Smith founded the new religion and he and his followers sought to establish a "communal Zion" as a home for the group, first in Ohio and later near Independence, Missouri. When religious persecution and mob violence led to the group's ejection from the show-me state, supported by the state's governor, Smith and his followers moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi river. While his followers transformed the town from barren wasteland to a thriving community, Smith sought political relief and protection from further persecution. When Smith's personal appeal to President Martin Van Buren and other influential Washington politicians fell on deaf ears, the Latter-day Saints embarked on a series of different strategies designed to protect their religious freedom, including running their prophet as a candidate for President of the United States. McBride offers a thorough and fascinating account of Smith's efforts at mixing religion with politics and government, describing how Smith utilized multiple methods to attempt to protect his people from religious persecution. These included forming a militia (with himself as General), utilizing a civic government with unique powers, as well as a municipal court system, and dispatching a series of missionaries throughout the nation as well as overseas, tasked both with saving souls and electing a president. It is a wonderful exploration of a little known chapter of antebellum presidential history and of the story of religious persecution in America.
5. President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier by C. W. Goodyear (reviewed here in this community): James Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, held the office for just 200 days, and spent the last 80 of those days in agony, after being shot by a crazed office seeker. He would ultimately die from a combination of his gunshot wounds as well as negligent medical treatment, and is considered to be the second President to be assassinated. In spite of the brief duration of his presidency, Garfield led an amazing, interesting and accomplished life, giving ample material for a good biographer. Those two elements (a fascinating subject and a talented author) combine superbly in C. W. Goodyear's outstanding 2023 book. As with any good biography, Goodyear does not limit the story to Garfield alone, but also explains the challenging issues Garfield had to confront throughout his career, as well as the diverse supporting cast in his life. This includes powerful contemporaries such as James G. Blaine (House Speaker and Garfield's Secretary of State), the pompous and vain Senator Roscoe Conkling, leader of the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party (the Capulets to Blaine's Montagues), Vice-President Chester Alan Arthur, a sycophantic bag man seemingly out of his depth in his office, and Presidents Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Grant and Rutherford Hayes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. It also includes the strong women in his life, his mother Eliza and his supportive wife Lucretia ("Crete.") Goodyear's portrayal of Garfield as a "hail fellow well met," that is as someone who steered a middle course in order to get along with all factions, and his highlighting of Garfield's courage and other positive qualities, should not leave the impression that this is a work of hero worship. The author does not shirk from addressing his subject's character defects as well. These include an extra-marital affair, his disgraceful conduct in negotiations with an indigenous first nation, some shady financial dealings while serving in congress, and inconsitencies in talking a good game when it came to the rights of African-Ameicans, while being quick to compromise those principles for political expediency. Goodyear leaves it to the reader to conclude whether Garfield lacked backbone or if he was simply being pragmatic in concluding that half a loaf is better than none.
6. All the Demons are Here by Jake Tapper (reviewed here in this community) A work of fiction, the third in the Charlie and Margaret Marder mystery series, CNN anchor Jake Tapper boldly goes into the next generation of the Marder family in his newest work as the story's protagonists are the couple's offspring. It's 1977, the nation is recovering from Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and the mistrust of government and political leaders that followed in its wake. Polarization has reared its ugly head and it has spread into the news media as tabloid journalism makes its way across the pond into the nation's capitol. The Marder children are now adults. Ike (named after the president with the famous grin Dwight Eisehnower) has joined the Marines and has checked himself out of a VA hospital after a traumatic episode in Lebanon. His older sister Lucy is an underappreciated journalist for a Washington daily, struggling to establish herself in a male-dominated world in which others take credit for her hard work. Ike snaps up an offer from his boyhood hero, Evel Kneval, working as a motorcycle mechanic in Montana, in a region surrounded by factions of white supremacists, wilderness refugees, religious cults, UFO enthusiasts and most stressful of all, his mercurial and narcissistic employer. When Lucy is head-hunted by a Rupert Murdoch-like newspaper publisher intent on sacrificing journalistic integrity for sensationalism, she finds her principles compromised as she is assigned to cover a possible serial killer in the DC area. When Ike badly injures a neo-Nazi in a barroom fight, he is forced to go on the lam, soon to be reunited with his employer in a cross-country adventure involving the King of Rock'n'Roll and the forthcoming 1980 Presidential contest. Tapper has a wonderful ability to turn real life historical figures such as Knevel, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, Barry Goldwaeter, Pat Buchanan and many others into characters in his story without betraying their true nature.
7. The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys - and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy by James Risen (reviewed here in this community): New York Times journalist Risen tells the story of Frank Church, who served as a liberal Democratic US Senator representing the increasingly conservative state of Idaho from 1957 to 1981. Church distinguished himself as an early critic of the Vietnam War at a time when many lacked the political courage to speak up, either for fear of being seen as unpatriotic or of running afoul of the domineering President Lyndon Johnson. Pulitzer Prize winning author Risen tells the story of Church's life, and his political acumen in this 2023 biography. This book is more that simply a cradle-to-grave biography. It captures both the character of its subject, as well as the complex times in which he lived. Born with an admiration for another longtime Idaho Senator (William Borah), Frank Church parlayed his youthful debating skills and his experience as a military intelligence officer into successfully challenging an incumbent Democratic Senator for the party's nomination, winning election and subsequent re-election for a 24 year career in the United States Senate, despite having strong liberal views on most issues, while representing a state that was on a constant march to the ideological right. Much of the book focuses on Church's fascinating work on the Senate committee that bore his name, one that would uncover abuses of power including political assassination conducted by the CIA, as well as other serious misconduct by the FBI, the NSA, and others at high levels of power in the United States government. All this was occurring in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It was a complicated time in US history, with the nation on one hand wanting to expose the hidden illegal actions of those holding high office, while at the same time being ready to attack those portrayed as a liberal threat to national security.
8. This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns (reviewed here in this community): How will history remember the 2020 Presidential election and the first year of the Biden presidency? Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns tell it as they saw it in this 2022 book. The authors pick up the history of American politics in the middle of the an unprecedented pandemic, through one of the most unusual presidential campaigns and conventions, and into one of the most controversial elections, leading to a riot at the US Capitol that leaves legislators fearing for their safety. The book carries on through to the inauguration of the man who will become the first octogenarian President of the United States, amidst an avalance of claims that his victory is a stolen one, claims accompanied by a loud echo in social media chambers, unaccompanied by much in the way of supporting evidence. The authors have an impressive portfolio of sources that take them inside private meetings from within both parties and this makes the book more fascinating. Writing a history of a recent election is difficult at the best of times, and even more so when political divisions are so intense. Have the authors succeeded in writing an fair and balanced account of what took place in American politics in 2020-22? Biden supporters will agree enthusuastically, while Trump supporters will cry "fake news." As for those of us in the minority who try to look at history objectively, it's probably too early to tell. But it does make for an interesting read.
9. The Russo-Ukrainian War by Serhii Plokhy (reviewed here in this community): Passion for his subject and a superb understanding of geopolitics combine to result in Serhii Plokhy's outstanding 2023 book, an intelligent and informative chronicle of the first year of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The book begins with an excellent summary of the history of Russo-Ukrainan relations going back to the mid-fifteenth century, as the author exposes the fallacy of a supposed united nation composed of the two now-warring nations, a myth that Vladimir Putin has used to justify his aggression against the sovereign rights of an independent people. Plokhy takes the reader through the many trials and tribulations of the Ukrainian people at the hands of Russian tormentors from the time of the Tsars, through Lenin and Stalin, before gaining independence with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. The author continues to examine how powerful nations, including the United States, emboldened Russian designs on the region, and how the administration of Bill Clinton sought to entice Russia into capitalistic pursuits by stifling Ukrainian plans to join NATO and by pressuring Ukraine to surrender the nuclear weapons within its borders, removing one more layer of protection that Ukraine had against potential Russian aggression. Plokhy also looks at how the administration of George W. Bush saw the threat of Russian aggression more realistically, but was too preoccupied with wars in other regions to do much to hinder it, and how the administration of Barack Obama sought a "great reset" in US-Russian relations (with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually giving her Russian counterpart a "reset" button.) The Obama administration's best intentions failed to impede Vladimir Putin's expanionist desires, as in 2014 Russia invaded Crimea while interfering in Ukrainian government affairs. The administation of Donald Trump was even more obsequious to Putin and his plans. Plokhy takes the reader though the history of the region, leading to the election of Volodimyr Zelensky and further attempts for Ukraine to join NATO, followed by the build-up of Russian troops on the border of Ukraine, and ultimately to the invasion (withheld until late February so as not to distract from China's hosting of the winter Olympic games.) The author provides an excellent account of the wartime events, explaining why Russia's hopes of a quick victory never came to pass, how and why Russian military strategy failed, how the Russian mistreatment of Ukrainian civillians made their imagined scenario of being welcomed as liberators laughable, and how Russian hopes for support from other nations sputtered out over time. Especially compelling is the author's portrayal of the courage of the Ukrainian people in the face of unimaginable danger.
10. Romney-A Reckoning by McKay Coppins (reviewed here in this community): Coppins, a journalist for the Atlantic magazine, gets unprecedented access to the subject of his biography, the subject's family, his private journal, his email and twitter accounts, and even interviews with the current and past presidents and other leading political figures. The result is one of the most talked-about books of 2023 and one of the year's best biographies.
What will 2024 hold in store for readers of Presidential subjects? Stay tuned to these pages as more reviews will follow in the coming year.
1. The Plots Against the President by Sally Denton (reviewed here in this community): The movie Amsterdam was loosely based on an alleged plot by business interests to overthrown the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In Sally Denton's 2012 book about the real threats to Roosevelt's presidency, she includes the one alleged by USMC General Smedley Butler (on whom Robert DiNiro's character is loosely based in the movie.) Denton also looks at other threats to FDR's presidency including from the left-wing populism from Louisiana demagogue Huey Long, from the anti-semitic "radio priest" Father Charles Couglin, from disaffected wealthy Democrats and Republicans alike who formed the so-called "American Liberty League" led by publisher William Randolph Hearst and by former Democratic presidential candidates Al Smith and John Davis. But the two threats most closely examined by Denton are the attempted assassination of President-Elect Roosevelt in Miami by Italian-American anarchist Giuseppe Zangara, and the "Wall Street Putsch" (also known as the "Business Plot"), an attempt by wealthy industrialists to convince the Butler to lead an insurrection to take over the White House by force if necessary. This book was very topical in light of the recent January 6, 2020 attempted insurrection.
2. The Fight of His Life-Inside Joe Biden's White House by Chris Whipple (reviewed here in this community): A new year and a new book about a new President. Whipple draws upon an amazing array of sources, including the present and many of the past White House Chiefs of Staff, to take the reader inside the current workings of the West Wing and Oval Office. Many of these sources were gathered for Whipple's earlier book, The Gatekeepers, about the Presidents' Chiefs of Staff, and the knowledge he has obtained from his previous research helps to provide considerable insight into the current administration's operations as President Joe Biden endeavors to lead the nation during one of the most polarizing times in the nation's history. It is extremely difficult to find an objective accounting of a current administration, and while Whipple's close-up of the Biden White House has its own biases, they are not so predominant as to take away from making this an interesting read. While some of Biden's critics question Biden's ability to serve as president at his age (one former chief of staff sees this as a major problem) Whipple does not really delve into this issue.
3. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Schlaes (reviewed here in this community)(reviewed here in this community): This is another "oldie" that I've been meaning to get around to reading. Written in 2008, it calls into question much of the conventional beliefs about how Roosevelt saved the nation from the greatest economic crisis in modern history. A simplified version of history suggests that Herbert Hoover dithered his way into the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt led the nation out of it. Shlaes takes an objective look at this assumption, and analyses the question of whether or not Roosevelt's policies brought about an end to the depression or prolonged it. Partisans will look for heros and villains in every political crisis, but the truth is almost always much more nuanced than that, and Shlaes looks in depth at the occurrances and the politics of the 1930s from the stock market crash of 1929 and the US army's mishandling of the Bonus March incident, to the election of Roosevelt and his constant "experimentation" as he tried various strategies, many inconsistent with others, in order to spend, tax or make war with business in order to bring about an end to the nation's misery.Shlaes offers a fascinating and thorough account of the era, and shares her excellent research from Roosevelt's inner circle. In 2008, when this book was published, it was victim to the polarization of the era, with conservaties seeing it a scathing indictment of the tax and spend polirices of the Roosevelt administration, and liberals seeing it as a hatchet job on the iconic FDR. But reading this book today in 2023, it is reasonable to conclude that neither of these are fair assessments. Shlaes is quick to give Roosevelt credit for his successful policies such as the bank holiday. Her criticm of programs such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and his plan to "pack" the Supreme Court are in generally supported by historians of both stripes, and even Roosevelt himself was said to acknowledge that the NIRA was a mistake. It is hard to argue with much of her analysis, especially through the lens of hindsight.
4. Joseph Smith for President by Spencer McBride (reviewed here in this community): Before there was Mitt Romney, another member of the Church of Jesus Christ or Latter-day Saints ran for President, the prophet himself, Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith is famous for being the founder of the Church that is better known as the Mormons, a movement founded after Smith was said to have experienced a series of visions which he believed to be divinely inspired. Declaring himself to be a prophet, Smith founded the new religion and he and his followers sought to establish a "communal Zion" as a home for the group, first in Ohio and later near Independence, Missouri. When religious persecution and mob violence led to the group's ejection from the show-me state, supported by the state's governor, Smith and his followers moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi river. While his followers transformed the town from barren wasteland to a thriving community, Smith sought political relief and protection from further persecution. When Smith's personal appeal to President Martin Van Buren and other influential Washington politicians fell on deaf ears, the Latter-day Saints embarked on a series of different strategies designed to protect their religious freedom, including running their prophet as a candidate for President of the United States. McBride offers a thorough and fascinating account of Smith's efforts at mixing religion with politics and government, describing how Smith utilized multiple methods to attempt to protect his people from religious persecution. These included forming a militia (with himself as General), utilizing a civic government with unique powers, as well as a municipal court system, and dispatching a series of missionaries throughout the nation as well as overseas, tasked both with saving souls and electing a president. It is a wonderful exploration of a little known chapter of antebellum presidential history and of the story of religious persecution in America.
5. President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier by C. W. Goodyear (reviewed here in this community): James Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, held the office for just 200 days, and spent the last 80 of those days in agony, after being shot by a crazed office seeker. He would ultimately die from a combination of his gunshot wounds as well as negligent medical treatment, and is considered to be the second President to be assassinated. In spite of the brief duration of his presidency, Garfield led an amazing, interesting and accomplished life, giving ample material for a good biographer. Those two elements (a fascinating subject and a talented author) combine superbly in C. W. Goodyear's outstanding 2023 book. As with any good biography, Goodyear does not limit the story to Garfield alone, but also explains the challenging issues Garfield had to confront throughout his career, as well as the diverse supporting cast in his life. This includes powerful contemporaries such as James G. Blaine (House Speaker and Garfield's Secretary of State), the pompous and vain Senator Roscoe Conkling, leader of the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party (the Capulets to Blaine's Montagues), Vice-President Chester Alan Arthur, a sycophantic bag man seemingly out of his depth in his office, and Presidents Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Grant and Rutherford Hayes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. It also includes the strong women in his life, his mother Eliza and his supportive wife Lucretia ("Crete.") Goodyear's portrayal of Garfield as a "hail fellow well met," that is as someone who steered a middle course in order to get along with all factions, and his highlighting of Garfield's courage and other positive qualities, should not leave the impression that this is a work of hero worship. The author does not shirk from addressing his subject's character defects as well. These include an extra-marital affair, his disgraceful conduct in negotiations with an indigenous first nation, some shady financial dealings while serving in congress, and inconsitencies in talking a good game when it came to the rights of African-Ameicans, while being quick to compromise those principles for political expediency. Goodyear leaves it to the reader to conclude whether Garfield lacked backbone or if he was simply being pragmatic in concluding that half a loaf is better than none.
6. All the Demons are Here by Jake Tapper (reviewed here in this community) A work of fiction, the third in the Charlie and Margaret Marder mystery series, CNN anchor Jake Tapper boldly goes into the next generation of the Marder family in his newest work as the story's protagonists are the couple's offspring. It's 1977, the nation is recovering from Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and the mistrust of government and political leaders that followed in its wake. Polarization has reared its ugly head and it has spread into the news media as tabloid journalism makes its way across the pond into the nation's capitol. The Marder children are now adults. Ike (named after the president with the famous grin Dwight Eisehnower) has joined the Marines and has checked himself out of a VA hospital after a traumatic episode in Lebanon. His older sister Lucy is an underappreciated journalist for a Washington daily, struggling to establish herself in a male-dominated world in which others take credit for her hard work. Ike snaps up an offer from his boyhood hero, Evel Kneval, working as a motorcycle mechanic in Montana, in a region surrounded by factions of white supremacists, wilderness refugees, religious cults, UFO enthusiasts and most stressful of all, his mercurial and narcissistic employer. When Lucy is head-hunted by a Rupert Murdoch-like newspaper publisher intent on sacrificing journalistic integrity for sensationalism, she finds her principles compromised as she is assigned to cover a possible serial killer in the DC area. When Ike badly injures a neo-Nazi in a barroom fight, he is forced to go on the lam, soon to be reunited with his employer in a cross-country adventure involving the King of Rock'n'Roll and the forthcoming 1980 Presidential contest. Tapper has a wonderful ability to turn real life historical figures such as Knevel, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, Barry Goldwaeter, Pat Buchanan and many others into characters in his story without betraying their true nature.
7. The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys - and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy by James Risen (reviewed here in this community): New York Times journalist Risen tells the story of Frank Church, who served as a liberal Democratic US Senator representing the increasingly conservative state of Idaho from 1957 to 1981. Church distinguished himself as an early critic of the Vietnam War at a time when many lacked the political courage to speak up, either for fear of being seen as unpatriotic or of running afoul of the domineering President Lyndon Johnson. Pulitzer Prize winning author Risen tells the story of Church's life, and his political acumen in this 2023 biography. This book is more that simply a cradle-to-grave biography. It captures both the character of its subject, as well as the complex times in which he lived. Born with an admiration for another longtime Idaho Senator (William Borah), Frank Church parlayed his youthful debating skills and his experience as a military intelligence officer into successfully challenging an incumbent Democratic Senator for the party's nomination, winning election and subsequent re-election for a 24 year career in the United States Senate, despite having strong liberal views on most issues, while representing a state that was on a constant march to the ideological right. Much of the book focuses on Church's fascinating work on the Senate committee that bore his name, one that would uncover abuses of power including political assassination conducted by the CIA, as well as other serious misconduct by the FBI, the NSA, and others at high levels of power in the United States government. All this was occurring in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It was a complicated time in US history, with the nation on one hand wanting to expose the hidden illegal actions of those holding high office, while at the same time being ready to attack those portrayed as a liberal threat to national security.
8. This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns (reviewed here in this community): How will history remember the 2020 Presidential election and the first year of the Biden presidency? Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns tell it as they saw it in this 2022 book. The authors pick up the history of American politics in the middle of the an unprecedented pandemic, through one of the most unusual presidential campaigns and conventions, and into one of the most controversial elections, leading to a riot at the US Capitol that leaves legislators fearing for their safety. The book carries on through to the inauguration of the man who will become the first octogenarian President of the United States, amidst an avalance of claims that his victory is a stolen one, claims accompanied by a loud echo in social media chambers, unaccompanied by much in the way of supporting evidence. The authors have an impressive portfolio of sources that take them inside private meetings from within both parties and this makes the book more fascinating. Writing a history of a recent election is difficult at the best of times, and even more so when political divisions are so intense. Have the authors succeeded in writing an fair and balanced account of what took place in American politics in 2020-22? Biden supporters will agree enthusuastically, while Trump supporters will cry "fake news." As for those of us in the minority who try to look at history objectively, it's probably too early to tell. But it does make for an interesting read.
9. The Russo-Ukrainian War by Serhii Plokhy (reviewed here in this community): Passion for his subject and a superb understanding of geopolitics combine to result in Serhii Plokhy's outstanding 2023 book, an intelligent and informative chronicle of the first year of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The book begins with an excellent summary of the history of Russo-Ukrainan relations going back to the mid-fifteenth century, as the author exposes the fallacy of a supposed united nation composed of the two now-warring nations, a myth that Vladimir Putin has used to justify his aggression against the sovereign rights of an independent people. Plokhy takes the reader through the many trials and tribulations of the Ukrainian people at the hands of Russian tormentors from the time of the Tsars, through Lenin and Stalin, before gaining independence with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. The author continues to examine how powerful nations, including the United States, emboldened Russian designs on the region, and how the administration of Bill Clinton sought to entice Russia into capitalistic pursuits by stifling Ukrainian plans to join NATO and by pressuring Ukraine to surrender the nuclear weapons within its borders, removing one more layer of protection that Ukraine had against potential Russian aggression. Plokhy also looks at how the administration of George W. Bush saw the threat of Russian aggression more realistically, but was too preoccupied with wars in other regions to do much to hinder it, and how the administration of Barack Obama sought a "great reset" in US-Russian relations (with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually giving her Russian counterpart a "reset" button.) The Obama administration's best intentions failed to impede Vladimir Putin's expanionist desires, as in 2014 Russia invaded Crimea while interfering in Ukrainian government affairs. The administation of Donald Trump was even more obsequious to Putin and his plans. Plokhy takes the reader though the history of the region, leading to the election of Volodimyr Zelensky and further attempts for Ukraine to join NATO, followed by the build-up of Russian troops on the border of Ukraine, and ultimately to the invasion (withheld until late February so as not to distract from China's hosting of the winter Olympic games.) The author provides an excellent account of the wartime events, explaining why Russia's hopes of a quick victory never came to pass, how and why Russian military strategy failed, how the Russian mistreatment of Ukrainian civillians made their imagined scenario of being welcomed as liberators laughable, and how Russian hopes for support from other nations sputtered out over time. Especially compelling is the author's portrayal of the courage of the Ukrainian people in the face of unimaginable danger.
10. Romney-A Reckoning by McKay Coppins (reviewed here in this community): Coppins, a journalist for the Atlantic magazine, gets unprecedented access to the subject of his biography, the subject's family, his private journal, his email and twitter accounts, and even interviews with the current and past presidents and other leading political figures. The result is one of the most talked-about books of 2023 and one of the year's best biographies.
What will 2024 hold in store for readers of Presidential subjects? Stay tuned to these pages as more reviews will follow in the coming year.