Books Briefly
Books Briefly presidential power and accountability : toward a new constitution, by Charles M. Hardin (University of Chicago Press. 257 pp. $7.95). Constitution-drafting, the modern version of the...
...The glorious—and vainglorious—picture of the American Revolution to which we will be increasingly subjected as the Bicentennial approaches is here balanced by a detailed account of the desertions, the treasons, the greed, the selfish in-fighting among American patriots, and the intrigue among foreign friends and foes that make the success of the Revolution, in retrospect, such an astonishment...
...deadline for the media: today's challenges to press, tv, and radio, by James Aronson (Bobbs-Merrill...
...Professor Hardin's book—he teaches political science at the University of California's Davis campus—is a case in point...
...Richard Nixon's first victim in his ruthless climb to power was Jerry Voorhis, then a five-term California Congressman rated by his colleagues and newsmen as one of the best ever to serve in the House...
...8.95...
...the price of independence: a realistic view of the american revolution, by Broadus Mitchell...
...327 pp...
...Aronson combines a lively style with careful research to provide a collection of thought-provoking essays which take the American mass media to task for sins of omission and commission...
...the strange case of richard milhous nixon, by Jerry Voorhis (Paul S. Erikson, Inc...
...In our own time of inflation, loss of faith in government, the agony over amnesty, and the chaotic state of our relations with other countries, there may be some perverse reassurance in reading this account of the messier aspects of the struggle to found this nation almost 200 years ago...
...His subjects range from government use of the media for spying to the underground press of the Sixties...
...Read this one for the questions, not the answers...
...9.50...
...Such exercises tend to be more useful as critiques of the past and present than as blueprints for the future...
...Instead he presents a documented account of President Nixon's repeated betrayal of the public interest in fields ranging from housing, health, taxes, education, welfare, and employment to nuclear power and the enormous waste in defense expenditures...
...Now a teacher of mass communications at New York University, Aronson deserves a wider audience for his thoughtful dissection of the mass media...
...He provides a thoughtful analysis of some major defects in the American political system, but his prescription, which he calls "sweeping," centers on a rather feeble plan to strengthen the role of the two major political parties...
...Voorhis, who continued to serve the public interest during twenty-five years with the Cooperative League of the U.S.A., dwells only briefly on the smear tactics that defeated him...
...341 pp...
...Constitution-drafting, the modern version of the ancient art of utopia-designing, is enjoying a small boom and may well become the do-it-yourself fad of the post-Watergate era...
...Nixon defeated him in 1946 with the Red-baiting tactics that he later used successfully to win a Senate seat, and in every one of his campaigns thereafter...
...Aronson is in a position to write authoritatively, since he is an experienced journalist and was editor of the radical National Guardian for more than a decade...
...8.95...
...His focus is mainly on the press, and much of the stress is on the external constraints which the mass media face in the Nixon years...
...374 pp...
...A first-rate critique, with recommendations for the future...
...Oxford University Press...
Vol. 38 • May 1974 • No. 5
