The President and the Assassin Reviews
“10 must-read summer books” selection.
“William McKinley’s presidency, and the era it spanned, tends to be forgotten, yet it was in those years that the modern American nation, economy, and presidency were forged. Scott Miller describes these years through the world of McKinley and the man who assassinated him. The result is a marvelous work of history, wonderfully written, told from the top down and the bottom up.”
“Scott Miller vividly traces the intersecting trajectories of (McKinley and his assassin.)”
“Miller’s fast-moving and richly detailed work…vividly explains the forces of history that were ending one century and beginning another.”
“Miller’s polished and vivid narrative of these complex, dissimilar men makes this piece of Americana appear fresh and unexpected.”
“The President and the Assassin is a real triumph.”
“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.”
“Absorbing” “…with a flair for presenting complicated issues and personalities as an intelligible whole, Miller examines the social, economic and political forces that underlay the transformation of the U.S. after the Civil War from a feeble newcomer in world affairs to the global power we know today in a way that keeps you learning and turning pages at the same time.”
“This book casts some welcome light on a stretch of American history that has grown dim.”
“Scott Miller deftly uses the twentieth century’s first presidential assassination as a literary device to paint an engaging, entertaining, and revealing portrait of America at a crucial turning point in its history.”
“Scott Miller has written a vivid and insightful story about a nation rich in energy and contradiction on the verge of greatness. A fast-paced read about an astonishing time.”