The Men and the Moment

Along with the Cuban missile crisis, where forests have been felled for the paper to tell the story, the 1968 presidential election continues to inspire historians and journalists to churn out lengthy monographs of varying quality on the subject. Usually these works are hard to distinguish from one another, but Aram Goudsouzian's compelling and well-written account is different. The University of Memphis professor places the election in a broad historical context, showing how our modern dysfunctional politics are directly linked to the events of 1968 and what the major participants—Richard M. Nixon, George Wallace, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Nelson Rockefeller—wrought with their individual campaigns and distinct personal styles. “These were all elite, influential white men in late adulthood,” the author reminds us (p. xiii). “At times, they were put to the test” (ibid.). At the beginning of that momentous year, the mere thought of any of them succeeding seemed to be a remote and quixotic prospect at best. Although he had experienced a significant slippage in the polls since his historic landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, the incumbent Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson was still considered a formidable political force that could easily swat aside a challenge from within or outside his party

Context (archaeology · Democracy · Economic history · Elite · Political science · Politics · Presidential election · Presidential system · Sociology · Victory · White (mutation · American Political and Social Dynamics · History · Law