31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today
by Barry Werth
List Price:
Our Price: $0.99
You Save: $25.01 (96%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Barry WerthEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-11
ISBN: 0385513801
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Book Reviews of 31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today
Book Review: ...and 1001 Nights
Summary: 3 Stars
The problem of 31 Days is one of focus. Author Barry Werth assumes the task of writing a concise history of a small slice of time: the first month of Gerald Ford's presidency, which started with the resignation of Richard Nixon and ended with Ford's decision to grant a pardon to Nixon for any crimes he may have committed while in office. The history is given in a day-by-day account which really is the story of Ford coming to grips with the problem of reuniting a country and leading it past the largest political scandal of its history.
But this story is ill-confined within the chosen format. To understand the challenge faced by Ford, one must have context, and context includes a more than passing understanding of those events that shaped this era, including Vietnam, Watergate, and Middle-Eastern shuttle diplomacy to name just a few. Allowing the reader to understand these things and their significance requires that the author jump back and forth in time to fill in the crucial background. As a result, the daybook format becomes disjointed and garbled.
The problem of focus also inheres in the development of the book's subtitle: "The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today." Here, the author wants to tie the Ford presidency to the ascendance of the neocons, which he does principally by foreshadowing the rise of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. The problem is that these two characters are not significant to the core story of the book; their importance comes later in the Ford presidency. Cramming eight years of Reagan, eight years of Clinton and eight years of Jimmy Carter/George H. W. Bush into an eighteen-page Epilogue hardly justifies the book's subtitle - although the Epilogue does make for an interesting essay and potentially another, better book. One senses that of the many things that resulted in giving us The Government We Have Today, few of them actually happened in August and September of 1974.
Though flawed, the book is readable and entertaining. However it only partially conveys the spirit of the times, and for that we must look to more ambitious and less constrained histories of the period.
20th Century Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in 20th Century Books
Route 66: The Mother Roadby Michael Wallis
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1992-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.99
Sweet and Low: A Family Storyby Rich Cohen
Picador; Published: 2007-03-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.15
Price in other shops:
When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreamsby Bob Greene
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2008-05-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.62
Price in other shops:
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star Stateby Randolph B. Campbell
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $155.33
The Dodgers Move Westby Neil Sullivan
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1989-06-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.97
Price in other shops:
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bushby Kevin Phillips
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2004-09-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.95
Price in other shops:
Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnamby H. R. McMaster
Harper Perennial; Published: 1998-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.36
Price in other shops:
My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoirby John H. Richardson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoirby John H. Richardson
Harper; Published: 2005-08-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.59
Price in other shops:
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906by Simon Winchester
PBS; Harper; Published: 2005-10-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.68
Price in other shops: