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A book on John F Kennedy's White House years. It shows Kennedy to be ""the most medicated, one of the most courageous, and perhaps the most self-absorbed of our presidents."" Featuring a bibliographical essay and twenty-two photos from the JFK library, it aims to be the definitive appraisal of Camelot's kingdom.

The 70s witnessed economic decline in America, coupled with a series of foreign policy failures, events that created an air of unease and uncertainty. This volume examines the ways in which Americans responded to a changing world and sought to redefine themselves.

"Through a close analysis of New Right architect Paul Weyrich, who is often seen as secular but was a committed Catholic who worked closely with evangelical Protestants, this book explores the way this Catholic-Protestant political alliance was forged by using a shared identity of victimhood to stitch together disparate religious groups, and then how this new political coalition constructed an imagined past that they projected into the future as the ideal goal. Chelsea Ebin calls this "prefigurative traditionalism" -- a paradoxical prefiguring of a manufactured past. Using this strategy, the new Religious Right obscures the radicality of its politics by framing the movement's aims as reactionary and defensive rather than proactive and offensive. An interdisciplinary work informed by the fields of history, religious studies, public law, and American politics, Prefiguring the Past is an insightful exploration of the origins of the New Christian Right, whose political victories are now radically reshaping the landscape of American society"--

"On February 27, 1973, a group of roughly 300 armed Indigenous men, women, and children seized the tiny hamlet of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, at gunpoint, took hostages, barricaded themselves in the hilltop church, and visibly displayed an upside-down American flag. Taking place at the site of the infamous massacre in 1890, the highly symbolic confrontation spearheaded by the American Indian Movement (AIM) ultimately evolved into a prolonged, 71-day armed standoff between law enforcement officers and modern-day Indigenous warriors-some of whom were Vietnam War veterans who were using Vietnam-era equipment and weaponry. By organizing in defense of the newly proclaimed Independent Oglala Nation, the AIM activists at Wounded Knee linked the nationalist quest for sovereignty and self-determination with a warrior masculinity that was constructed from a mix of Indigenous cultures and contemporary cultural elements, including the Black civil rights movement, the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s, and the antiwar movement. In Reinventing the Warrior, Matthias Andrâe Voigt examines the way gender construction was integral to the Red Power movement. Indigenous activists sought to become "more manly" in order to challenge hegemonic masculinities-and, by implication, colonialism. Indigenous remasculinization challenged the emasculating nature of white supremacy. Voigt traces the story of the reinvention of Indigenous warriorhood from 1968 to the takeover of Wounded Knee in 1973 and beyond"--

The Vietnam War ended nearly fifty years ago but the central paradox of the struggle endures: how did the world's strongest nation fail to secure freedom for the Republic of Vietnam? Michael F. Morris addresses this vexing question by focusing on the senior Marine headquarters in the conflict's most dangerous region. Known as I Corps, the northern five provinces of South Vietnam witnessed the bloodiest fighting of the entire war. I Corps also contained the Viet Cong's strongest infrastructure, key portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the important political and economic prizes of Hue and Da Nang. For Americans, it was the site of the first major military operation (Operation STARLITE); the Battles of Hue City and Khe Sanh during the 1968 Tet Offensive; and a military innovation known as the Combined Action Platoon (CAP), a counterinsurgency technique designed to secure the region's villages. The Marine zone served as Saigon's "canary in the coal mine"--if the war was to be won, allied action must succeed in its most contested region. With such deep significance, I Corps holds many answers to the lasting questions of the Vietnam War.Following the Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF)--the primary US tactical command in I Corps from 1965 to 1970--Corps Competency? provides the first composite analysis of the critical role of the senior Marine headquarters and offers a coherence missing in piecemeal accounts. Despite the critical importance of I Corps, relatively little is known about its overall impact on the war due to disconnected and patchy historical study of the region.In this comprehensive and newly insightful study of the Vietnam War, Michael Morris tells a story that illustrates what can happen when a corps headquarters is not ready for the conflict it encounters and then fights the war it wants to rather than the one it must.

In this book, Bruce I. Oppenheimer and the late Robert L. Peabody analyze the 1976 House majority leader race and present the result of their unrivaled insider access to this turning point in congressional history. This fierce contest among the Democratic leadership marked the transition of the House of Representatives into the party-dominated institution that is so familiar today. The 1976 election, in which the Democrats consolidated the gains made in 1974, led to two important changes in House Democratic leadership. After Carl Albert's retirement, Majority Leader Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Jr., of Massachusetts advanced unopposed to the Speakership. This led to a contest between four formidable candidates for the position of majority leader: Rules Committee Spokesman Richard Bolling of Missouri, Caucus Chairman Phillip Burton of California, Majority Whip John McFall of California, and Representative James C. Wright, Jr., of Texas. It was arguably the most competitive contest for a major leadership position in congressional history. Ultimately, it took extensive campaigning and three ballots before Wright emerged victorious. During the race, Oppenheimer and Peabody conducted lengthy interviews with the candidates and their principal supporters, resulting in their eye-opening analysis of this contest as a key stepping stone between committee government and conditional party government in the House of Representatives that continues to the present day. The authors first presented their original research on the 1976 House majority leader contest at the 1977 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. With that original groundbreaking paper at its core, this book adds new chapters by Oppenheimer that evaluate the accuracy of the study and provide richer historical context, showing how congressional politics changed in the years after the 1976 contest. Their original study was the result of the greatest access that political scientists have ever had to a congressional leadership race, and it has enduring value for understanding our current political crisis.

As the heir apparent to the presidency in 1808, James Madison had a substantial reputation and an impressive list of credentials, including having cofounded the Democratic-Republican party with Thomas Jefferson and serving as Jefferson's secretary of state. Despite this, Madison's presidential victory in 1808 was hardly uncontested as he faced internal opposition from supporters of James Monroe and Vice President George Clinton. In 1812, then, it was by no means a sure thing that Madison would secure a second term, and that uncertainty grew substantially after Madison essentially asked Congress for a declaration of war on June 1, 1812, mere months before the election.America's First Wartime Election focuses on an overlooked moment in political history. The War of 1812 has generated a significant amount of attention, overshadowing the election that took place in the early stages of the conflict. As the United States and Great Britain clashed on the battlefield, President James Madison was challenged by DeWitt Clinton, the nephew of George Clinton, who was the simultaneous mayor of New York City and the lieutenant governor of his state. Clinton held a base of Democratic-Republican support in New York where many in his party opposed the war. Many New Yorkers also resented Virginia's domination of the presidency going back to George Washington's tenure. Other Democratic-Republicans supported the war but faulted Madison for his poor preparations and early battlefield setbacks. United in their opposition to the war, Federalists joined forces with Clinton, but the alliance was tardy, disorganized, and awkward.The story of this election is also a tale of weak political parties. The Federalist party had steadily lost strength since the election of Jefferson in 1800, and the Democratic-Republican party was still a young, disjointed, and fractious coalition. In order to sustain the party that he had helped to start, Madison was under pressure not only to secure his reelection but also to successfully conduct the war. While Madison had vulnerabilities, given America's poor preparation for the war, the fusionist ticket supporting Clinton was poorly positioned to challenge the incumbent president. Political parties in general were still in their infancy, thus complicating efforts to build a coherent alternative to Madison. For a fusion ticket to succeed in elections, strong political parties are necessary, which was not the case in 1812. Red-hot passions over the divisive War of 1812 overlapped with a presidential election that became a referendum on the conflict itself. Momentum is important in politics--a principle that was just as important over 200 years ago as it is today.Written for scholars, students, and the public alike, Donald A. Zinman's accessible study of this important but often ignored election is another illuminating entry in the University Press of Kansas's longstanding American Presidential Elections series.

"In Facing the Victorious Turks, Andrew Orr argues that French military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials' Orientalism and racism led them to misunderstand the Turkish War of Independence by placing Europeans at the center of their analysis of the Middle East. French observers' flawed understanding of Muslims and Islam fed conspiracy theories that distorted their understanding of Germany, the emerging Soviet Union, Middle Eastern politics, and colonialism. It allowed them to perceive and report the danger of Middle East-wide revolts without questioning whether it was European rule itself that was causing the political turmoil. French military leaders were thus able to escape the sort of self-reflection that might have exposed the exploitative nature of colonialism and pushed them to question the moral and strategic justifications for colonial rule"--

"Examples of fraud on the public are everywhere. Fossil fuel industries have long used PR firms and lobbyists to spread disinformation about oil and climate change. Cigarette companies famously lied about the effects of tobacco, and opioid manufacturers used deceptive marketing tactics. Social media influencers and fringe media outlets promoted fraudulent claims about the pandemic being a government hoax. Others claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines were part of a sinister plot. Politicians lie, or at least seem to lie, with such regularity that people have become deeply cynical about whether to believe anything they say. Many Republicans, led by Donald Trump, insisted on the false accusation that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. Henricksen shows that fraud is carried out for many reasons beyond financial gain, including political gain, the prevention of justice, and the falsification of history. In addition to exposing the depths of the problem, Henricksen also gives readers a way forward. He proposes that we call these massive acts of fraud by their proper name, "de-weaponize" the First Amendment that was never meant to shield fraudulent claims, and enforce new laws that protect the public. By diagnosing the crisis of misinformation and showing how to fight it, In Fraud We Trust is a book that speaks to the present moment"--

Endangered ecosystem or renewable resource? How we feel about forests has to do with more than trees. This interdisciplinary collection of essays examines the history of forestry in the United States, exploring the impact of the discipline on natural and human landscapes since the mid-nineteenth century. Through important articles that have helped define the field, it assesses the development of the forestry profession and the U.S. Forest Service, analyzes the political and scientific controversies that have marked forestry's evolution, and discloses the transformations in America's commitment to its forested estate. American Forests highlights the intersection of the political, social, and environmental forces that have determined the use and abuse of American forests. It examines changes both in the assumptions that have defined forest management and in the scientific approach to--and political justification for--timber harvesting in our national forests. It sheds light on the ongoing debate between utilization and conservation, addressing arguments from environmentalists, the timber industry, sportsmen, and politicians while exploring the interaction between public opinion and public policy. It provides sharp insights into the most important players in the politics of forestry, from George Perkins Marsh and Berhard Fernow to Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt. And it addresses issues as wide-ranging as budgeting, clearcutting, and the regulation of livestock grazing on national forest lands. This multifaceted volume draws on the insights of scholars in conservation and ecology, economics, history, law, and political science to make a definitive contribution to the study and practice of forestry. By both clarifying and extending recent debate about the political purpose, scientific character, and environmental rationales of forestry in America, it will help define the place of forests in our future.

The beautiful picture of brothers in arms vanquishing a tyrant. The power of a well-orchestrated army and navy winning historic battles. Overwhelming military might and ability through teamwork. This is how the US military services portray themselves to the public and to their own service members through official doctrine. However, under the veneer of jointness, deeply fraught processes are at play. Frequently, the services think more about protecting organizational turf than about national security and maintaining an advantage against the United States' external adversaries. Uniting US military services is a difficult endeavor that becomes even more so the farther from a battlefield and the higher up the command structure the unifying needs to happen.In The Collaborative Fight, Paul R. Birch and Lina M. Svedin examine cases of institutional jointness among US military services from the late nineteenth century into the twenty-first century. They draw actionable conclusions for practitioners in the defense establishment while giving examples of successful joint cooperation that overcame the difficulties inherent in pursuing it. Even the successful cases that Birch and Svedin discuss show that the US military services face bureaucratic incentives and organizational leadership issues that make battlefield cooperation less than ideal.Birch and Svedin adeptly translate theory and history into approaches useful to practitioners in the field while examining the theoretical framework outlining the drivers in joint military cooperation.

Today, when politicians, pundits, and scholars speak of states' rights, they are usually referring to Southern efforts to curtail the advance of civil rights policies or to conservative opposition to the federal government under the New Deal, Great Society, and Warren Court. Sean Beienburg shows that this was not always the case, and that there was once a time when federalism--the form of government that divides powers between the state and federal governments--was associated with progressive, rather than conservative, politics.In Progressive States' Rights, Sean Beienburg tells an alternative story of federalism by exploring states' efforts in the years before the New Deal of shaping constitutional discourse to ensure that a protective welfare and regulatory governmental regime would be built in the states rather than the national government. These state-level actors not only aggressively participated in constitutional politics and interpretation but also specifically sought to create an alternative model of state-building that would pair a robust state power on behalf of the public good with a traditionally limited national government.Current politics generally collapse policy and constitutional views (where a progressive view on one policy also assumes a progressive view on the other), but Beienburg shows that this was not always true, and indeed many of those most devoted to progressive policy views were deeply committed to a conservative constitutionalism.

"The latest book by renowned legal historian William Nelson is about American judicial conservatism during the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth. It examines the subject, however, not by studying all jurisdictions but by focusing in detail on the work of judges in a single jurisdiction-New York-together with a glimpse at the work product of United States Supreme Court justices. Nelson's book challenges the received wisdom that conservative judges, along with much of the legal profession in the decades from 1860 to 1920, were on the side of big business and the rich. He finds another form of conservative jurisprudence on display in New York, where conservative judges reached decisions that were forward-looking and progressive in character with respect to business doctrine"--

The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834 represented what many considered the ongoing benevolence of the United States toward Native Americans, establishing a congressionally designated refuge for displaced Indians to protect them from exploitation by white men. Others came to see it as a legally sanctioned way to swindle them out of their land.This first book-length study of "Indian country" focuses on Section 1 of the 1834 Act-which established its boundaries-to show that this legislation was ineffectual from the beginning. William Unrau challenges conventional views that the act was a continuation of the government's benevolence toward Indians, revealing it instead as little more than a deceptive stopgap that facilitated white settlement and development of the trans-Missouri West.Encompassing more than half of the Louisiana Purchase and stretching from the Red River to the headwaters of the Missouri, Indian country was designated as a place for Native survival and improvement. Unrau shows that, although many consider that the territory merely fell victim to Manifest Destiny, the concept of Indian country was flawed from the start by such factors as distorted perceptions of the region's economic potential, tribal land compressions, government complicity in overland travel and commerce, and blatant disregard for federal regulations. Chronicling the encroachments of land-hungry whites, which met with little resistance from negligent if not complicit lawmakers and bureaucrats, he tells how the protection of Indian country lasted only until the needs of westward expansion outweighed those associated with the presumed solution to the "Indian problem" and how subsequent legislation negated the supposed permanence of Indian lands.When thousands of settlers began entering Kansas Territory in 1854, the government appeared powerless to protect Indians--even though it had been responsible for carving Kansas out of Indian country in the first place. Unrau's work shows that there has been a general misunderstanding of Indian country both then and now--that it was never more or less than what the white man said it was, not what the Indians were told or believed--and represents a significant chapter in the shameful history of America's treatment of Indians.