Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America
- Book Review,
by Eric Rauchway
From Publishers Weekly
This ambitious book paints a fresh picture of American culture a century ago and finds there the confused stirrings of our own age. Rauchway's lens opens on the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz and keeps that event in focus throughout. The author's aim is to get us to understand in new ways the dawning 20th century, when so many of our present political and social struggles took form and solutions were proposed. For instance, the involvement in Czolgosz's case of "alienists" and criminologists provides Rauchway (The Refuge of Affections) with openings into such varied issues as nativism, racism, industrial conditions and social work. As for politics, he deals skillfully with now mostly forgotten issues-such as tariffs and currency policy-that rarely appeal to readers, but which here gain clarity through Rauchway's deft brevity. Most important, he shows how the nation's culture, and Theodore Roosevelt, who gained the presidency on McKinley's death, got caught up in a debate about the reasons for the murder. Was Czolgosz spurred by his psychological state or by anarchist ideology? Did the murder's origins lie within the assassin or in the social conditions that produce desperate people? These are issues that continue to divide Americans. And the book shines in dealing with them, making an important contribution to historical understanding. Rauchway's explanation for Roosevelt's 1912 loss as "Bull Moose" candidate of the Progressive Party-that he was caught between opposing interpretations of the roots of the nation's ills-is especially provocative. That alone should make the book controversial. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Justice moved swiftly in 1901, dispatching the assassin of William McKinley a few short weeks after the crime. Rauchway wonders if the motives of the killer, self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz, were sufficiently investigated. For factual backbone, Rauchway relies on evidence gathered by one Vernon Briggs, a psychologist who interviewed the Czolgosz family and was sensitive to explaining aberrant behavior in terms of social conditions. And there was much to be sensitive about in late 1890s America, whether one was a stand-pat capitalist or a protesting proletarian: Rauchway works the fears and demands of both archetypes into his interpretation of the politics of the Progressive Era. Czolgosz serves as the author's vehicle for taking his narrative in many directions, such as immigration, industrialization and poverty, concepts of race as enunciated by Theodore Roosevelt, and more. Ultimately offering a theory of Czolgosz's motive, Rauchway presents an interpretive narrative best suited to readers with at least a TR biography under their belts. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"A gripping detective story, Murdering McKinley packs an astonishing amount of history -- about law, medicine, technology, race, immigration, and political reform -- into its tale of why Leon Czolgosz, professed anarchist and suspected lunatic, murdered his president. One could not ask for a more riveting narrative or a better introduction to the inter-connected challenges that faced America at the opening of the twentieth century."
--Rosalind Rosenberg, Professor of History, Barnard College
"Eric Rauchway is that rare historian who is also a first-rate storyteller. Murdering McKinley is almost as impressive a literary feat as it is a scholarly one; a fascinating window on a turbulent time in our untold history and a damn good read to boot."
--Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News
"With a "You Are There" style that makes us practically smell people we usually see in static photos and flickering silent film clips, Murdering McKinley places an anonymous oddball assassinating a nonentity of a President at the center of the cataclysmic events roiling America at turn-of-century. Erudition harnessed to an addictive tale told in butter-smooth prose -- history writing at its best."
--John H. McWhorter, author of Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
"Eric Rauchway's fascinating book deftly weaves together social, cultural and political history. This is truly a pathbreaking work, and a wonderful read for all of us who are intrigued by the emergence of the radically new progressive era."
--Elizabeth Sanders, Cornell University
"Eric Rauchway's Murdering McKinley ingeniously weaves together the microhistory of a murder and a boldly innovative account of the origins of the Progressive era. Once a mere footnote in American history, the assassination of McKinley in 1901 emerges as an event as pregnant with historical significance as the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. What is so marvellous about this book is that it is not only first-class history. It is also an enthralling whodunnit."
--Niall Ferguson, author of The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000
Review
"A gripping detective story, Murdering McKinley packs an astonishing amount of history -- about law, medicine, technology, race, immigration, and political reform -- into its tale of why Leon Czolgosz, professed anarchist and suspected lunatic, murdered his president. One could not ask for a more riveting narrative or a better introduction to the inter-connected challenges that faced America at the opening of the twentieth century."
--Rosalind Rosenberg, Professor of History, Barnard College
"Eric Rauchway is that rare historian who is also a first-rate storyteller. Murdering McKinley is almost as impressive a literary feat as it is a scholarly one; a fascinating window on a turbulent time in our untold history and a damn good read to boot."
--Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News
"With a "You Are There" style that makes us practically smell people we usually see in static photos and flickering silent film clips, Murdering McKinley places an anonymous oddball assassinating a nonentity of a President at the center of the cataclysmic events roiling America at turn-of-century. Erudition harnessed to an addictive tale told in butter-smooth prose -- history writing at its best."
--John H. McWhorter, author of Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
"Eric Rauchway's fascinating book deftly weaves together social, cultural and political history. This is truly a pathbreaking work, and a wonderful read for all of us who are intrigued by the emergence of the radically new progressive era."
--Elizabeth Sanders, Cornell University
"Eric Rauchway's Murdering McKinley ingeniously weaves together the microhistory of a murder and a boldly innovative account of the origins of the Progressive era. Once a mere footnote in American history, the assassination of McKinley in 1901 emerges as an event as pregnant with historical significance as the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. What is so marvellous about this book is that it is not only first-class history. It is also an enthralling whodunnit."
--Niall Ferguson, author of The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000
Review
"A gripping detective story, Murdering McKinley packs an astonishing amount of history -- about law, medicine, technology, race, immigration, and political reform -- into its tale of why Leon Czolgosz, professed anarchist and suspected lunatic, murdered his president. One could not ask for a more riveting narrative or a better introduction to the inter-connected challenges that faced America at the opening of the twentieth century."
--Rosalind Rosenberg, Professor of History, Barnard College
"Eric Rauchway is that rare historian who is also a first-rate storyteller. Murdering McKinley is almost as impressive a literary feat as it is a scholarly one; a fascinating window on a turbulent time in our untold history and a damn good read to boot."
--Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News
"With a "You Are There" style that makes us practically smell people we usually see in static photos and flickering silent film clips, Murdering McKinley places an anonymous oddball assassinating a nonentity of a President at the center of the cataclysmic events roiling America at turn-of-century. Erudition harnessed to an addictive tale told in butter-smooth prose -- history writing at its best."
--John H. McWhorter, author of Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
"Eric Rauchway's fascinating book deftly weaves together social, cultural and political history. This is truly a pathbreaking work, and a wonderful read for all of us who are intrigued by the emergence of the radically new progressive era."
--Elizabeth Sanders, Cornell University
"Eric Rauchway's Murdering McKinley ingeniously weaves together the microhistory of a murder and a boldly innovative account of the origins of the Progressive era. Once a mere footnote in American history, the assassination of McKinley in 1901 emerges as an event as pregnant with historical significance as the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. What is so marvellous about this book is that it is not only first-class history. It is also an enthralling whodunnit."
--Niall Ferguson, author of The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000
Book Description
How an assassin, a dead President, and Theodore Roosevelt defined the Progressive Era.
When President 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 re-creates Leon Czolgosz's hastily conducted trial and then traverses America as Dr. Vernon Briggs, a Boston alienist, sets out to discover why Czolgosz rose up to kill his President. While uncovering the answer that eluded Briggs and setting the historical record straight about Czolgosz, Rauchway also provides the finest portrait yet of Theodore Roosevelt at the moment of his sudden ascension to the White House.
For Czolgosz was neither a foreigner nor much of an anarchist. Born in Detroit, he was an American-made assassin of such inchoate political beliefs that Emma Goldman dismissed him as a police informant. Indeed, Brigg's search for answers---in the records of the Auburn New York State penitentiary where Czolgosz was electrocuted, in Cleveland where Leon's remaining family lived---only increased the mystery. Roosevelt, however, cared most for the meanings he could fix to this "crime against free government all over the world." For Roosevelt was every inch the calculating politician, his supposed boyish impulsiveness more feint than fact. At one moment encouraging the belief that Czolgosz's was a political crime, at the next that it was a deranged one, Roosevelt used the specter of McKinley's death to usher in Progressive Era America.
So why did Czolgosz do it? Only Rauchway's careful sifting of long-ignored evidence provides an answer: heart-broken, recently radicalized, and thinking he had only months to live, Leon decided to take the most powerful man in America with him.
From the Inside Flap
When President 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 re-creates Leon Czolgosz's hastily conducted trial and then traverses America as Dr. Vernon Briggs, a Boston alienist, sets out to discover why Czolgosz rose up to kill his President. While uncovering the answer that eluded Briggs and setting the historical record straight about Czolgosz, Rauchway also provides the finest portrait yet of Theodore Roosevelt at the moment of his sudden ascension to the White House.
For Czolgosz was neither a foreigner nor much of an anarchist. Born in Detroit, he was an American-made assassin of such inchoate political beliefs that Emma Goldman dismissed him as a police informant. Indeed, Brigg's search for answers---in the records of the Auburn New York State penitentiary where Czolgosz was electrocuted, in Cleveland where Leon's remaining family lived---only increased the mystery. Roosevelt, however, cared most for the meanings he could fix to this "crime against free government all over the world." For Roosevelt was every inch the calculating politician, his supposed boyish impulsiveness more feint than fact. At one moment encouraging the belief that Czolgosz's was a political crime, at the next that it was a deranged one, Roosevelt used the specter of McKinley's death to usher in Progressive Era America.
So why did Czolgosz do it? Only Rauchway's careful sifting of long-ignored evidence provides an answer: heart-broken, recently radicalized, and thinking he had only months to live, Leon decided to take the most powerful man in America with him.
About the Author
Eric Rauchway has written about history for The Financial Times and The Los Angeles Times. He teaches at the University of California, Davis and is the author of The Refuge of Affections. He lives in Northern California with his family and one dog.
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