Books, Arts & Manners: The Passing of the Postwar Age

America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President 1956-1980 By Theodore H. White Harper and Row, 465 pp., $15.95 Theodore H. White is one of our most consistently interesting contemporary historians, and his Making of the President series, which began with Kennedy versus Nixon in 1960 and concludes with the present volume, has made a large contribution to our sense not only of American presidential politics but of American life itself in the post-World War II period.

It seems to me that it is important to define the special qualities of mind and heart that have given these books their generally perceived value. Theodore White is a very intelligent man, but there are lots of intelligent people who do not achieve the note that is pervasive in his writing. The late R. H. Tawney once remarked that love can be a mode of knowing. Some lovers, of course, are blind and go about in a kind of delirium; but others treasure every last detail, and want more detail, more understanding. That is what we find here. Theodore White loves America, and he has loved the great spectacle of the presidential campaigns. He savors the personalities and the strategies, the gossip and detail of the campaign, the issues both in their substance and in their political bearing. He wants to know how it all works, and what it all means. For him, love is indeed a mode of knowing.

About the Author

Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Presidential Election

America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President 1956-1980 By Theodore H. White Harper and Row, 465 pp., $15.95 Theodore H. White is one of our most consistently interesting contemporary historians, and his Making of the President series, which began with Kennedy versus Nixon in 1960 and concludes with the present volume, has made a large contribution to our sense not only of American presidential politics but of American life itself in the post-World War II period.

It seems to me that it is important to define the special qualities of mind and heart that have given these books their generally perceived value. Theodore White is a very intelligent man, but there are lots of intelligent people who do not achieve the note that is pervasive in his writing. The late R. H. Tawney once remarked that love can be a mode of knowing. Some lovers, of course, are blind and go about in a kind of delirium; but others treasure every last detail, and want more detail, more understanding. That is what we find here. Theodore White loves America, and he has loved the great spectacle of the presidential campaigns. He savors the personalities and the strategies, the gossip and detail of the campaign, the issues both in their substance and in their political bearing. He wants to know how it all works, and what it all means. For him, love is indeed a mode of knowing.