The Politicos, 1865-1896

by Josephson, Matthew; Kazin, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780981457901
• ISBN10: 0981457908
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-15
• Publisher: Greekworks.Com Inc

Summary

Out of print for decades, this sequel to Josephson's classic, The Robber Barons, is even more resonant-indeed, cautionary-a historical account today than it was when first published seventy years ago. In his preface to this edition, Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas, praises The Politicos as the "volume of history that has the most to teach us about the present." Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, has written the perceptive introductory essay to the new volume. He notes that "Josephson was able to convince readers living through the worst of the Great Depression that the roots of their calamity could be traced to the power and greed so notorious at the end of the last century." In this extraordinary election year, when the echoes of history are already resounding particularly strongly, we hope that the reissue of The Politicos has a similar effect. In the event, the book's forceful critique of an electoral process that rewards political self-interest while subverting constitutional accountability is, unfortunately, as germane today as it was seventy or even a hundred years ago. That is why we believe it does more than contribute to the ongoing debate about our country's past. The Politicos is, in fact, one of those works of history that actually does serve as a guidepost to the future.

Author Biography

Matthew Josephson was born in Brooklyn in 1899. In addition to The Politicos, 1865-1896 (1938) and The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901 (1934), he was the author of two other studies of American politics and society, The President Makers: The Culture of Politics and Leadership in an Age of Enlightenment, 1896-1919 (1940) and The Money Lords: The Great Finance Capitalists, 1925-1950 (1972), as well as biographies of labor leader Sidney Hillman (1952), Thomas Alva Edison (1959), and New York governor Al Smith (1969). Josephson was also deeply immersed in French culture, and wrote biographies of Zola, Rousseau, Hugo, and Stendhal. He died in Santa Cruz, California, in 1978 at the age of seventy-nine.