![]() ![]() Was America a booming nation whose rapidly growing industries were creating wealth on an unprecedented scale? Or was it a place of misery for working people who labored in horrific conditions that would never voluntarily be improved by the capitalist class and the politicians who served it? It was both, and Miller's narrative whipsaws between those realities as it chronicles the years leading to President William McKinley's assassination in 1901 by self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz.ĭecried by anarchists as a stooge of the plutocrats, McKinley was a well-loved public figure noted for his easy affability with the common man and woman. ![]() ![]() Veteran journalist Scott Miller has done something very interesting in his first book: He has conjoined two kinds of histories to create a portrait of the United States at the turn of the 20th century as a country divided between worldviews so radically dissimilar that they hardly seemed to be describing the same reality. The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |