Category Book Reviews
Holiday book recommendation: Plutocrats – The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
A few years ago, I lost perhaps my favorite liberal talking head Chrystia Freeland in the North American media to the world of Canadian politics. Freeland is now in the Cabinet of Canada as Minister for International Trade following the liberal party victory in October’s national election. Freeland entered politics in 2013 after writing about it and […]
Holiday book recommendation: Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen
The story of the African-American members of Congress during the Reconstruction era is often forgotten. The long standing Dunning School of history made every effort to paint reconstruction as a mistake and portray that the only way to truly reconcile the nation was to let white southerners do what they want in the region. Thus […]
Holiday book recommendations – Finding Dan McCarty and Jimmy Carter in Plains
Finding Dan McCarty, by Robert Buccellato has been released and is available via Amazon.com (click on the link on the book title to purchase a copy). I’m honored to have contributed to this work writing a Forward which was about the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s in Florida politics. From the book: A thin layer of glass separated him […]
Holiday book recommendations: Claude Pepper, Florida’s liberal champion
Review of Red Pepper and Gorgeous George: Claude Pepper’s Epic Defeat in the 1950 Democratic Primary (Florida Government and Politics) and Claude Pepper and Ed Ball: Politics, Purpose, and Power (Florida History and Culture) While most modern historians and political activists would point to November 7, 2000 as the most significant election in Florida’s history as far […]
Holiday book recommendation: It Happened in Florida
E. Lynne Wright’s It Happened in Florida: Remarkable Events That Shaped History (It Happened In Series) is a collection of largely untold short non-fiction stories about Florida’s rich history. The well-researched and written book is presented in a chronological order. Whether it is Ponce De Leon’s near landing on the present day Space Coast, Henry Flagler’s […]
Book Review: Jimmy Carter in Plains, The Presidential Hometown
Forty years ago this month Jimmy Carter won the New Hampshire Primary setting up his 1976 march to the White House. Carter, who had begun the campaign as a largely unknown governor of Georgia was catapulted to stardom thanks to hard work, strong grassroots efforts and a humbleness unbecoming of a politician. In the wake […]
Book Review: The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis
The US Senate has a well-earned reputation as the “greatest deliberative body on earth.” That reputation however was earned in a bygone era, times of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Often times in the late 20th Century and early 21st, The Senate has been far from deliberative or courageous. It has in […]
Book Review: Who Stole the American Dream?
I was in High School when I first read Hedrick Smith’s immortal The Power Game. the book remains the definitive guide to how Congress and the White House worked during the Reagan years when the Democrats continued to control the House, while Republicans enjoyed narrow margins in the Senate – however the number of moderate […]
Book Review: Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen
The story of the African-American members of Congress during the Reconstruction era is often forgotten. The long standing Dunning School of history made every effort to paint reconstruction as a mistake and portray that the only way to truly reconcile the nation was to let white southerners do what they want in the region. Thus […]
Movie Review: Shattered Glass; Book Review: Unbelievable: Stephen Glass Wants a Second Chance
The New Republic has long been the bible or at least one of them for the center-left in the United States. As someone who has read the magazine on and off for over two decades, I have vivid memories of the Stephen Glass scandal. The embellishments of Stephen Glass which came soon after the plagiarism […]
The Florida Squeeze 