Review of 'The Making of the President 1960' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
When you look at political history there are some figures that stand above the crowd, and Theodore White is one of them. This was his first book about a presidential election, the election of 1960 that saw John F. Kennedy defeat Richard M. Nixon. White went on to document the following three elections: 1964 (Lyndon Johnson v. Barry Goldwater), 1968 (Richard Nixon v. Hubert Humphrey), and 1972 (Richard Nixon v. George McGovern), and while they are all good books I have enjoyed reading, I personally think this first one was the best. It gives a view of the election as it would have appeared ot people at the time, not as we look back on it. Kennedy has received numerous hagiographies as a result of this assassination, which make him appear better then he really was, while after Watergate Nixon is viewed as irredeemably evil. But neither of them was …
When you look at political history there are some figures that stand above the crowd, and Theodore White is one of them. This was his first book about a presidential election, the election of 1960 that saw John F. Kennedy defeat Richard M. Nixon. White went on to document the following three elections: 1964 (Lyndon Johnson v. Barry Goldwater), 1968 (Richard Nixon v. Hubert Humphrey), and 1972 (Richard Nixon v. George McGovern), and while they are all good books I have enjoyed reading, I personally think this first one was the best. It gives a view of the election as it would have appeared ot people at the time, not as we look back on it. Kennedy has received numerous hagiographies as a result of this assassination, which make him appear better then he really was, while after Watergate Nixon is viewed as irredeemably evil. But neither of them was viewed through those lenses as the election of 1960 took place.
This book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1962.
