Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America (edition 2004)by Eric Rauchway
Work InformationMurdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America by Eric Rauchway
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Entertaining and informative book about the times surrounding McKinley’s assassination, though disorganized/lacking a through-line. One of the most interesting parts was about how the African-American man who first tackled the assassin was written out of the story, which connected to the broader abandonment of African-Americans by Republicans like Roosevelt and native white cultural anxieties about immigrants overtaking their willingness to pay attention to blacks. The assassin Leon Czolgosz, a native-born American, was perceived as a foreigner, and connected with anarchism; he was apparently shaped by the experience of extreme economic uncertainty under the robber barons of the age. The other really neat section discussed the tension between the idea that only a madman would assassinate a president—which if true would give Czolgosz a good insanity defense—and the idea that he had actual political grievances, however misguided—which if true would force Americans to confront the severe consequences of capitalist development. The hostility to immigrants and the huge wealth inequalities have obvious resonances for today’s America, too. ( ) I liked the concept, but the execution was lacking. The idea is T. Roosevelt and the Progressive movement was driven, and drove, societies viewpoints on insanity and what that implies about societal obligations to correct conditions that create insanity. An intriguing idea, but the author fails to explore it adequately .Nonetheless, an OK read, and brief. no reviews | add a review
"After President William McKinley was fatally shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, Americans were bereaved and frightened. Eric Rauchway's brilliant Murdering McKinley re-creates Leon Czolgosz's hastily conducted trial and then traverses America as Dr. Vernon Briggs, a Boston alienist, sets out to discover why Czolgosz rose up to kill his President. While uncovering the answer that eluded Briggs and setting the historical record straight about Czolgosz, Rauchway also provides the finest protrait yet of Theodore Roosevelt at the moment of his sudden ascension to the White House."--Jacket. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)973.8History and Geography North America United States 1865-1901LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |