1912

Presidential politics in one crucial year of the Progressive Era—before TV, polls, and consultants: not a horse race so much as a contact sport. Veteran journalist and editor Chace (Govt. and International Affairs/Bard Coll.; Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World, 1998, etc.) does not present a fresh interpretation of the 1912 election, but he offers a lively recounting of this pivotal, bitter contest that hinged on how to overcome economic inequality and featured significant third-party involvement. The rivals included conservative Republican President William Howard Taft; his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, who broke with his old friend over conservation and trust-busting issues, then bolted the GOP to form the Progressive Party; New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson, whose brilliant oratory called for more stringent antitrust legislation; and fiery socialist Eugene Debs, who preached trade unionism to audiences as large as 100,000. Chace captures the way that rivals’ egos could shade into substantive quarrels over the use of presidential power. He conveys a pre–photo-op era of candidates’ barnstorming coast to coast by train with messianic zeal, with Roose