World Famous Comics: Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America
Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America
By: Eric Rauchway Publisher: Hill and Wang Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Hill and Wang Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 272 Publication Date: September 18, 2004 Release Date: August 26, 2004
Product Description: When President William McKinley was murdered at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, Americans were bereaved and frightened. Rumor ran rampant: A wild-eyed foreign anarchist with an unpronounceable name had killed the commander-in-chief. Eric Rauchway's brilliant Murdering McKinley restages Leon Czolgosz's hastily conducted trial and then traverses America with Dr. Vernon Briggs, a Boston alienist who sets out to discover why Czolgosz rose up to kill his president.
Great Transaction Book was shipped promptly within the projected time frame. Quality of book met my expectations. Speedy delivery.
A Changing America The assassination of William McKinley is far less examined than those of Lincoln and Kennedy. If only for the relative obscurity of the topic alone, this deserves a look. While somewhat disappointing for a lack of focus, the book is quite informative.
The author's thesis seems to be that the assassination of McKinley was symbolic of America's discontent with conservativism and big business's hold on politics, bringing about the progressive movement and the emergence of Theodore Roosevelt. The title of the book would seem to imply a focus on the assassination of McKinley, which is not accurate. Make no mistake about it, the title of the book is deceiving. Rauchway goes for several pages at a time examining nothing but the rise of Roosevelt. In that respect, the author strays from delivering what the title of the book suggests and at times from supporting his apparent thesis.
One of the issues the book does a reasonable job of addressing is the story behind McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz. Alienist Vernon Briggs investigated the life of Czolgosz only to find the powerful businesses that McKinley shielded were a key part of the environment that created the assassin. In the process of his investigation, Briggs brings the issue of the insanity defense to the attention of the American justice system. In this respect, Briggs's research had a major impact on the judicial system.
Without the significant digressions into the social changes brought about by the Roosevelt administration, this book would be much thinner. Perhaps that is why Rauchway chose to include it. Even with the digressions, the book is decidedly thin. I enjoyed the book even though I believe it could have been composed with a much better sense of focus.
The Concept Of This Book Was More Interesting Than The Book Itself Those who have noticed my growing list of reviews will find a lot of things reviewed, including several books on history. If you are one of those, you may notice that these books deal with presidents of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Considering that McKinley is my favorite president, this book captured my interest. However, it failed to maintain it.
I noticed it goes along with the traditional view that McKinley was basically conservative, and that progressive Roosevelt became vice-president to get him out of the hair of NY boss Sen. Tom Platt. Having read Kevin Phillip's biography, I disagree with this assessment. I also found the comparisons between McKinley's assassin Leon Czolgosz (pronounced "Cholgosh") with Garfield's killer Charles Guiteau interesting, having read "Dark Horse" about Garfield.
This book looks at various aspects of the turn of the century outlook. It seems to see Roosevelt as the beneficiary of Czolgosz's crime. I find some of the former interesting, but the book continued to bore me. Like "Dark Horse", it is told as a story, but it would make an excellent bed-time story because I would be asleep in no time.
If you have a keen interest in the mindset of that period of time, I would recommend this book to you. Likewise, if you want to deal with what constitutes insanity, I would also suggest you read this book. However, if you want a book to keep your interest, this is not it.
A great effort at a truly unique topic The authors goal of trying to show how the 20th century was going to be radically different from the 19th is a tough one to pull of but Rauchway makes a valiant effort. This book deserves five starts because it takes a topic that no one else has attempted and presents the information well. There are a few minor errors that I discovered but on the whole it presents a useful history that when taken in context is an excellent segway into the era of American imperialism. Overall this is a good book that is a great read for those who have knowledge about the Gilded Age.
Very First Page Contains a Glaring Error. Rest isn't Much Better I'm sure the statement, as fact, that Emma Goldman "dismissed [Czolgosz] as a police informant" would come as a great surprise to Miss Goldman. Anyone who read her autobiography, living my life, or looked into the subject at all would know that it was her friend, the Mennonite anarchist Abraham Isaak, who published a warning about Czolgosz being a spy in his newspaper "Free Society." Goldman didn't really know Czolgosz (or even his real name), but she demanded Isaak publish a retraction as he had no proof of his allegation. She later blamed this kind of hostile treatment from the very Chicago anarchists she'd introduced Czolgosz to for driving him to "prove himself" through his attentat.
If you want to know about Anarchism and the period, don't buy this book. Buy "Living My Life," or read it right here for free: [...]
Frankly, that's what the author would have done if he'd cared about getting even the most basic facts correct.
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