American Maelstrom by Michael Cohen
1968 was a year of turmoil. Economic anxiety was on the rise; racial conflicts were increasingly aggressive as the Black Power movement gained visibility; LBJ's massive bombing campaign had escalated the war in Vietnam; and at home, an emerging counter-culture and vocal feminist movement were declaring war on traditional values. With the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April and Robert F. Kennedy in June, the nation teetered on the brink of chaos. It all culminated in the dramatic presidential race that year, which brought together a dynamic group of politicians vying for the nation's confidence - and resulted in an election that palpably and irrevocably transformed American politics. In Vortex, Michael Cohen captures the drama of the events leading up to this watershed moment. The political consensus that existed just four years prior had completely disappeared, replaced by division and acrimony on a scale rarely before seen in the country's history. Despite the impressive array of political talent assembled in the presidential election - Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, Ronald Reagan and George Wallace - the candidates struggled to appeal to a nation deeply divided by race, class, and values. Cohen traces the new tactics, rhetoric, and issues that emerged in the campaign, from Nixon's so-called Southern Strategy to win over Democrats to Wallace's third-party run, which caused deep divisions among conservatives and traditional Republicans.Ultimately, Cohen proves 1968 to be a hinge between the high-water period of 1960s political liberalism to the ascendancy of conservative populism and anti-government attitudes that continue to dominate the nation's political discourse. The political battles in Washington today are being waged on a battlefield constructed in 1968, and in unraveling the complex story of that year, Cohen sketches out the broad lines of American politics over the past four decades.-
A Storm of Witchcraft
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The Battle of Midway
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Washington's Crossing
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Crossroads of Freedom
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Brown v. Board of Education:
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Adams vs. Jefferson
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As If an Enemy's Country
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The Last Indian War
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Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement
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James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights
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My Lai
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Into the Bright Sunshine
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All Shook Up
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Rainbow's End
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The Louisiana Purchase
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He Has the People
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Freedom Riders
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The Bay of Pigs
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The Birth of Modern Politics
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Unconditional
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Lincoln's Last Speech
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The Scratch of a Pen
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Braddock's Defeat
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Sailing East
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Roosevelt's Second Act
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Storm over Texas
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The Flight of the Century
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The Compleat Victory
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The GI Bill
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The Dogs of War
well-written and highly readable narratives.. thorough in their presentation and offer compelling narratives that a general audience will enjoy and details that will help provide the foundations for scholars to launch into deeper analyses about the sixties, presidential politics, and a host of other fields of inquiry. * Thomas B. Weyant, H-Net *
Michael Cohen is regular writer and commentator on American politics and U.S. foreign policy. He is the author of Live from the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the 20th Century and How They Shaped Modern America, as well as a columnist for the Guardian newspaper.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780199777563 |
| ISBN 10 | 019977756X |
| Title | American Maelstrom |
| Author | Michael Cohen |
| Series | Pivotal Moments In American History |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press Inc |
| Year published | 2016-07-14 |
| Number of pages | 448 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |