Lana Stein

John F. Kennedy, our 35th president, was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. He had won the presidency in 1960 in a very close election. His martyrdom created a Camelot image to his presidency and many were moved by the young family he left behind. Almost sixty years ago, and in the earlier part of the […]

All in all, Roberts and Smith have offered us popular, rather than scholarly, history. Reading about Mantle and the Yankees is a pleasant exercise for anyone who likes baseball, and particularly for those who enjoyed some of those 1950s seasons.

Hitchcock’s biography imparts a great deal of information about Ike and his times, enough so that the reader can make his or her own judgment about his career. One of the work’s weaknesses is that it does not set Eisenhower’s presidential choices within the context of the times, namely public opinion.

“What is important in this volume is not necessarily Akin’s history of his career. Rather the book illustrates the key characteristics of many in the Christian right who make a difference at the ballot box. When there is such fundamental belief in certain tenets, political and societal division is inevitable and gridlock prevails.”