From Leslie Butler:
Eric Rauchway, Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's
America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.
Part courtroom drama, part detective novel, this book uses the assassination
of President William McKinley in 1901 as a flashpoint of the modern era—one
that reveals national attitudes (often conflicted) towards a largely
working-class immigrant population, towards the place of African-Americans in
political life a full generation after Reconstruction, towards the role of
government in addressing the ills of industrial society, and towards the very
meaning of human nature in that industrial society. The assassination
represented the "bloody birth" of the national reform spirit known as
Progressivism, Rauchway argues, claiming dramatically that McKinley really had
two murderers: the "anarchist assassin" who "shot and destroyed
his body" and the "progressive President" who "succeeded
him and erased his legacy." The book combines political and cultural
history and is a real page-turner as well.
From Ron Edsforth:
Donald Puchala, Theory and History in International Relations.
Routledge, 2003.
An extremely perceptive and engaging critique of the current academic
practices of international relations specialists, especially of their
dependence on the "manufacture" of data and its statistical analysis.
Puchala's essays include eloquent examples of what the author thinks is needed:
more history and attention to culture.
From Rich Kremer:
Nelly Oudshoorn, The Male Pill: A Biography of a Technology in the
Making. Duke University Press, 2003.
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