Writing a new book on Hollywood politics..
I'll be relatively silent for the coming few weeks while I complete work on a new book to be published by Thomas Dunne next year. It's titled Citizen Hollywood and is a study of how Hollywood has changed Washington and Washington has changed Hollywood. It's part history, part social study - with a great deal to say about the way in which the movie business shaped the 2012 election. I'm due to submit in June, so apologies if I'm slow to post or reply to emails. I'll be living on a diet of coffee and Red Bull. In case you're wondering, the photo on the left is President Nixon and Sammy Davis Jnr - one of the strangest political partnerships in history. God bless Sammy for turning up to the White House wearing a peace symbol medallion...
Pat Buchanan biography out now!
The Crusader: the Life and Times of Pat Buchanan, my latest book, is available for purchase. It’s a biography of one of America’s greatest conservative polemicists – a man who wrote speeches for Nixon and Reagan, coined the phrase “silent majority”, declared a “cultural war” against liberalism in the 1990s, and ran three incredible presidential campaigns that turned US politics on its head. It’s a book with a wonderful cast - Barry Goldwater, Sarah Palin, Mel Gibson, Rachel Maddow. It's funny, exciting, controversial, and occasionally sad. Left and Right have been generous in their praise. Paul Gottfried called it “the authoritative biography of a fascinating public figure”. Lizabeth Cohen said it was “not only fascinating biography [but] very important history.” Order it on AMAZON.
New collection of essays on American liberalism
Making Sense of American Liberalism: Taking the pulse of the left in contemporary politics is also available for purchase. Published by the University Press of Illinois, this is a collection of essays that I co-edited on the past and future of US liberalism. Authors include Tony Badger, Lizabeth Cohen, Susan Hartmann, Nelson Lichtenstein, Doug Rossinow, and Timothy Thurber. My own essay is on socialist activism in the 1970s. Steve Gillon of History Channel fame calls it "an impressive collection [that] pulls together an all-star roster of prominent historians and promising younger scholars to make an important contribution to our understanding of postwar liberalism."
News
I'm now a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph and the leader writer for the Sunday Telegraph. I'm still blogging hard for the Telegraph, and you can find my work here. I also crop up from time to time on CNN and the Catholic Herald, and I write once a month for History Today magazine.
I've contributed an article to a new collection on the GOP: Seeking a New Majority: The Republican Party and American Politics, 1960-1980. It's a study of how Richard Nixon tried to reach out to blue-collar voters during his first administration. |
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