Tom Zoellner
Author of Island on Fire
Book Recommendations:
Recommended by Tom Zoellner
“In this striking book, Bob Riel surveys the whole panorama of American history through the lens of its presidential campaigns. These quadrennial contests have been called the only times the nation really comes together to talk to itself, and Riel shows us just how colorful, dysfunctional, jangling, and entertaining those conversations have always been. Even the experts will learn something they didn’t know from the well-chosen details within—memorable and revealing snippets from our grand national heart-to-heart with each other.” (from Amazon)
by Bob Riel·You?
Quest for the Presidency gathers in a single volume the compelling stories behind every presidential campaign in American history, from 1789 through 2020. Bob Riel takes us inside the 1800 clash between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the 1860 election that launched the Civil War, the 1948 whistle-stop comeback of Harry Truman, the Kennedy-Nixon drama of 1960, the 1980 Reagan Revolution, the historic 2008 election of Barack Obama, the turbulent 2020 battle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and everything in between. This engaging and insightful book includes a trove of entertaining stories about campaigns and candidates, and it goes beyond the campaign tales to also consider the threads that link elections across time. It sheds light on the continually evolving story of American democracy in a way that helps us to better understand present-day politics.