100 books like The Election of the Evangelical

Both major political parties formed much bigger ideological tents during most of the post-World War II period than they do today.

Kabaservice’s book is fascinating because it depicts a time and place in the 1960s when the Republican Party was extremely heterogenous and featured large and politically potent moderate and liberal wings.  Geographically, the Party of Lincoln still held great sway in its original base in New England and the Midwest. As a result, centrists like New York’s Nelson Rockefeller, Michigan’s George Romney, and Massachusetts’ Ed Brooke were power brokers in the GOP of that era.

Kabaservice also shows how conservatives ascended to power as the liberal and moderate wings gradually declined and disappeared by the early 21st century, giving us the contemporary Republican Party.

This book is engaging because it shows how the base of the Democratic party has changed since Franklin Roosevelt first assembled the New Deal political coalition in the 1930s. 

Today, it is increasingly the party of college-educated suburban voters and reflects their cultural and political priorities. From the Great Depression until the 1960s, however, working-class urban voters formed the heart of the party. Geismer uses metropolitan Boston as a template to depict this important transition, which helped produce suburban candidates such as Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, whose political career emerged from and was shaped by his life in Brookline, MA.  

The 1988 election was the last contest in which the three broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) and the major mainstream newspapers like The New York Times dominated political coverage. 

Over the next three decades, a more diverse media environment emerged where cable channels, talk radio and other sources would play a central role. Rosenwald lays out the rise of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk radio hosts in the 1990s and how they helped shape the modern Republican Party and the more partisan and tribalized political climate of the early 21st century.

This book is interesting because it shows how a traditional New Deal/Great Society liberal like Vice President Mondale adapted to the changing politics of the 1970s and 1980s. 

To a certain extent, he saw how some Democratic policies needed to be reformed for the new circumstances of a more conservative era. During his 1984 run for the president, he famously proposed raising taxes to combat the Reagan-era deficits. 

Though this proposal is recalled as a misguided attempt to campaign as a conventional progressive, Mondale was trying to show that Democrats could be responsible fiscal stewards. Four years later, Dukakis continued this effort through his own repeated mentions of the multiple budgets he balanced while governor of Massachusetts.

The Steal documents what happened in the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and January 6th in swing states that Biden won, where Trump persuaded local loyalists that the election had been rigged. Avid Trump supporters embraced every wild conspiracy theory Trump World tossed their way—imagining minor glitches to be bulletproof evidence of massive fraud. 

As the author of another narrative about the collateral damage wrought by purveyors of the Big Lie, I had obvious reasons to be drawn to The Steal. It deftly see-saws between besieged election workers and officials trying to do their jobs in the face of unrelenting pressure, and those who—truth, law, and logic be damned—applied that pressure. The Steal fascinates, both as a commentary on human nature and a ground-level account of an attempted coup.  

Gellman is a nationally-recognized historian, whose writings reflect thorough and insightful research. His earlier books – on Nixon’s time in Congress (The Contender) and as Eisenhower’s vice president (The President and the Apprentice) – meticulously debunked derogatory stories about Nixon, and this one on the 1960 campaign does the same. Many believe Theodore White’s Making of the President,1960 is the only authoritative account of that contest, but Gellman points out how White set out to idolize Kennedy and villainize Nixon – never once actually speaking to Nixon, either during or following the campaign. Gellman is an excellent writer, putting his readers right in the center of historic events. His final chapter, bringing the campaign all together is simply outstanding.

Pat Buchanan joined Nixon’s staff in 1966 and was the conservative guru on his White House staff throughout Nixon’s terms in office. Totally written off for dead after his 1962 loss to Edmund “Pat” Brown as California’s governor, Nixon remerged to be sworn in as our 37th President in January 1969 – and Pat was with him every step of the way. This book is Buchanan’s insider account of how that recovery was planned, executed, and ultimately achieved. Its stories reflect lessons and insights for everyone interested in national campaigns. I served alongside Pat in the Nixon White House, but this volume fills in intimate details of Nixon’s wilderness years – before he took the oath of office.

Identity Crisis delivers a compelling account of the 2016 Presidential campaign.

The book explains how the election played out and what factors led to Trump’s seemingly surprising victory.

The authors explore the many plausible reasons for the outcome, eventually concluding that the racially charged language of the campaign, particularly from Trump, provoked voters’ pre-existing divisions on racial issues and prompted them to vote based on identity.

In addition, they address how identity compared to factors such as economic anxiety and dissatisfaction as explanations for Trump’s success. The 2016 election was indicative of a more apparent American crisis that raised issues such as who is American and what the values of the country are.

There is probably no journalist in Washington more revered and connected than Bob Woodward. From his Watergate fame five decades earlier, the Washington Post legendary reporter and editor has continued his eye-opening, impressive work. Peril is his final book in a trilogy on the Trump administration. He and fellow Post journalist Robert Costa interviewed more than 200 administrative players who provide this account with the deep-sourced material that Woodward fans have come to expect. 

While numerous interviews are off the record and the focus of the book is more on officials than foot soldiers who carried out the attack, the result is a revealing tome that does not disappoint.

Cole is an underappreciated historian of the Jacksonian era. Unlike Remini’s classic overview of the 1828 presidential election, which is long on narrative and short on critical analysis, Cole provides a more in-depth examination of one of the dirtiest campaigns in U.S. history. It is the go-to book if you want to understand the inner workings of how Jackson was elected.