(University of Notre Dame Press), by Jeffrey J. Matthews
Colin Powell was a good soldier all his life. Trustworthy, loyal, he obeyed orders while exercising a measure of judgment and initiative within the scope of his authority. It was a sterling career, tarnished only by his notorious Weapons of Mass Destruction speech at the U.N., where he presented the Bush administration’s case for invading Iraq. Powell’s judgment and initiative went only so far, Jeffrey Matthews writes in his biography. For the U.N. speech, Powell weeded out many dubious assertions called for by Dick Cheney but fell nevertheless to confirmation bias. Everyone assumed that Saddam Hussein had WMD, and so did Powell, ignoring all the holes in the story. Alone in the circle around George W. Bush, Powell could have steered America away from the shoals of Iraq.
Matthews examines Powell’s formative experience and finds the key to his success as well as his limitations. The child of hardworking, aspiring immigrants, Powell went from an obedient family into ROTC. The Army provided him with structure and hierarchy. A colonel gave him advice as a black lieutenant in 1950s America: Don’t rock the boat. Powell followed suit, rising through his ability and his “followership.”
Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa into the Twenty-First Century (becker&mayer! Books), by Velma Maia Thomas
It’s true: As Velma Maia Thomas writes in the introduction to Lest We Forget, “America was built on the backs of enslaved Africans.” Until the Civil War, cotton was America’s export economy and the hard work was done by slaves. A richly illustrated coffee-table book, Lest We Forget goes deep into the origins of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, contrasting its peculiar brutality and social destruction with more traditional forms of bondage that existed in Africa and elsewhere. Thomas takes the African American story through the Civil War and the disappointing second-class freedom that followed, leading the narrative into the civil rights movement and up to the stark divisions that persist today.
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Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas (W.W. Norton), by Stephen Budiansky
Nowadays, many judges spend dozens of pages writing a ruling on a procedural matter. Oliver Wendell Holmes could interpret the Constitution in a few elegant, cogent paragraphs. Stephen Budiansky convincingly rescues Holmes’ reputation from the sort of drudges he always disparaged—especially obscurantist academics and moralizers who believe law is an abstraction rather than a force that influences lives. The Holmes that emerges in Budiansky’s illuminating biography seems almost paradoxical for his willingness to uphold the rights of people he held in “magnificent contempt.” Named to the Supreme Court by Theodore Roosevelt, he resembled that president in his vigor as well as his refusal to be constrained by easy, ordinary categories of thought.
The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America’s Best—and Worst—Chief Executives (PublicAffairs), by Brian Lamb, Susan Swain and C-SPAN
Rating the presidents from best to worst was a political parlor game before C-SPAN got hold of it. Once again, the cable channel surveyed several American historians and commentators who rank each president and offer thoughts and context. C-SPAN imposed criteria on the game, with presidents earning or losing points in categories such as crisis leadership, moral authority, international relations and the pursuit of justice. Holding the top two spots are Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, without whom the U.S. as we know it wouldn’t exist. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt come in third and fourth with Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman right behind. Eisenhower is an especially interesting case. His reputation as an old man asleep at the wheel of state has changed over the years into a shrewd poker player who never revealed his hand. Listed as worst president, thus far, is James Buchanan, an ineffectual man who stood by as America slipped toward Civil War. Donald Trump goes unranked, as this study concerns only former presidents, but several contributors make comments about him at the end.
Proxmire: Bulldog of the Senate (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), by Jonathan Kasparek
William Proxmire took his job as U.S. Senator seriously. Representing Wisconsin from 1957 through 1989, Proxmire was present at nearly every roll call and raced back to his home state on many weekends. He was in tune with his constituents but aware of the higher purpose of serving the nation. UW-Waukesha history professor Jonathan Kasparek examines the career of a politician who confounds 21st-century political divisions. The Democrat was as fanatical about balanced budgets and government waste as any Republican but unlike them, was willing to call out the military for abusing the taxpayers’ dollar. As Kasparek writes, Proxmire was “an incorruptible, dedicated public servant thoughtfully guiding the republic and protecting it from executive tyranny and popular passions.” He played the role of senator as the framers of the Constitution intended.
