re: What are your Top 5 books about American Politics?

1920 The Year of the Six Presidents: David Pietrusza - Amazon.com

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The presidential election of 1920 was among history's most dramatic. Six once-and-future presidents-Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt-jockeyed for the White House. With voters choosing between Wilson's League of Nations and Harding's front-porch isolationism, the 1920 election shaped modern America. Women won the vote. Republicans outspent Democrats by 4 to 1, as voters witnessed the first extensive newsreel coverage, modern campaign advertising, and results broadcast on radio. America had become an urban nation: Automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit transformed the economy. 1920 paints a vivid portrait of America, beset by the Red Scare, jailed dissidents, Prohibition, smoke-filled rooms, bomb-throwing terrorists, and the Klan, gingerly crossing modernity's threshold.

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This has become on of my all time favorite history books. Not only is the wheeling and dealing at the nominating conventions fascinating, but the book is often laugh out loud funny -- surely a rare quality in history books, at least in my experience

The same author has also written books on the presidential elections of 1932, 1948, and 1960, all of which are excellent.

Just finished a very similar book:

Just Plain Dick: Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech and the “Rocking, Socking” Election of 1952



Highly recommended as well.





RIP