| From the Award-Winning Author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents |
| "Terrific" —Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Caro " a must-read" —Joe Scarborough, MSNBC "Almost half a century after Theodore White's The Making of the President, 1960, Pietrusza (1920: The Year of the Six Presidents) raises the bar with his winning and provocative chronicle. . . . Highly recommended . . . " —Library Journal (starred review) "Pietrusza is not beholden to any of the three candidates . . . a wide- ranging panorama that includes a vast cast of characters . . . An outstanding reexamination" —Booklist "[A] colorful, character-driven narrative. . . . A lively look at the underside of a campaign." —Kirkus Reviews "Historian and author Pietrusza provides a revisionist view of the 1960 presidential campaigns that pitted John F. Kennedy against Lyndon B. Johnson, then against Richard M. Nixon—and greatly influenced their individual presidencies. The book has the tone of a thriller, complete with suspense and twists and turns, but is based on the author's examinations of five decades of primary and secondary sources. Fresh details illustrate Kennedy's well-hidden self-destructive behavior, Johnson's insecurities, and Nixon's adversarial relationship with the news media. This is the kind of book that makes reading history enjoyable." —Book News (©Book News Inc., Portland, OR www.booknews.com) "Vote-buying, backroom deals and other unsavory aspects of the American political system are difficult to get away with in the age of cell phone cameras, blogs a voracious 24 hour news cycle. But as recently as a half-century ago such tactics were not uncommon in American politics, and in the election of 1960 they played a significant role in electing a president. David Pietrusza's 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs Nixon: The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies weaves together a stunning tale of closed-door political intrigue during a period of rapid change in American society. "The political machinations of Joe Kennedy, father of Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy, are laid bare in Pietrusza's compelling tale. During the West Virginia Democratic primary Kennedy's minions were not shy about spreading around campaign cash to achieve their desired result. Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson's late entry into the presidential contest, at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, forced party stalwarts to take sides against two powerful forces who would soon team up on a national ticket as a matter of convenience. Republican Vice President Richard Nixon, meanwhile, had to do battle with rising conservative forces within his own party and a less-than-enthusiastic endorsement by his one-time political patron, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. "Pietrusza's '1960' is essential for understanding the political forces that in many ways shaped the world we live in today. This book should be an anchor of any political library." —David Mark, author of Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning and senior editor at POLITICO "manages to shed fresh details on that year’s epic" —Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) "among the best political books I've ever read." —Political consultant Roger Stone "I flew through this book—partly because I couldn’t put it down and partly because it is supremely readable. Pietrusza’s research brings us amazing quotes, and the book features complex characters who are full of enough stories that it’s easy to get lost in a book about each of them individually. In 1960, these individuals are playing a part in the same drama and there is never a moment where you wish the author would switch back to something more interesting. Every story he tells is interesting." —Anthony Bergen, Dead Presidents blog "Here's what Theodore White didn't tell you in 'The Making of the President, 1960.'" —The Denver Post "LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies aims to take us deeper into the campaign than Theodore White's famous The Making of the President, 1960. And it does . . ." —The Chicago Sun-Times "full of lively quotations" —Presidential Studies Quarterly "one of the best history books I've ever read. . . . Pietrusza writes in a conversational story-telling style that's part tabloid, part historian, telling a lot that the newspapers would never have dared report. . . . You could read 50 biographies of JFK or Nixon and still learn many new things in this book. . . . If you're a history geek and want a read that's fun, but informative and historically accurate, I highly recommend this book for your reading pleasure." —Presidential History Geeks blog "recommended . . . Another corrective to the flaws in [Theodore S.] White's work. Pietrusza . . . wrote . . . decades after the 1960 election, so [he] had a more expansive and dispassionate perspective than White and access to information the Kennedy camp worked hard to keep from the public." —Jason Maoz, JewishPress.com "wonderfully informative and entertaining" —Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) "one of the best books about American politics ever written. . . . I learned something new on every page. . . . The politics and culture of the time are recreated in a vivid, well-told way. . . . objective and even- handed. Every intelligent American- and indeed, any intelligent foreigner interested in American history and American politics, should read this fine book." —Dr. Joseph A. Harder "a riveting, larger-than-life page turner" —Joe Sherlock "engaging and entertaining . . . A must-read for anyone interested in presidential politics . . . a great account of one of the more interesting presidential races in US history. This book is really a mix of history and a bit of soap opera. Lots of juicy background information and it really does make you think differently of all three of these presidents. The author simply does not play favorites . . ." —usahistorybooks.com "Best political book I've read . . . haven't been able to put it down . . . how you want your political history . . . a jaw-dropping fact on nearly every page." —John Pagani "This is the third of David Pietrusza's election year books I've read— the other two were 1920 and 1948—and I recommend them highly. They are light and breezy. He manages to find sympathetic faces in largely unsympathetic crowds without whitewashing the major players—and he manages to find major players unsympathetic without mistaking them for interchangeable. He could keep writing these for every American election as far as I'm concerned, and I'd keep reading them. 1864! 1900! There are dozens of elections yet to go before he gets to the ones that are uneasily close to Right Now." —Marissa Lingen |
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