A giant of political journalism, Lou Cannon rose to prominence as state bureau chief for the San Jose Mercury News in the late 1960s, covering then-governor of California Ronald Reagan. In 1972, he became a political reporter for The Washington Post, one of the top newspapers in the United States, where he would remain until 2008. Best known for his coverage of Reagan’s presidency, he also notably covered the brutal beating of Rodney King at the hands of the Los ...

Everyone knows which books people buy; they can just look at the best-seller lists. But who knows which books people steal? Who, for that matter, knows that authors ruin the book market by writing too much? Or why book critics are not critical? Or why librarians need to throw out more books? Who, indeed, knows the answer to that all-important question in our democracy: should presidents and presidential candidates write books? (The answer is no.)In this irreverent analysis of the bo...

Winner of the Goldsmith Book PrizeWinner of the AEJMC History Division Book AwardWinner of the AJHA Book of the YearWinner of the Culbert Family Book PrizeManipulating the Masses tells the story of the enduring threat to American democracy that arose out of World War I: the establishment of pervasive, systematic propaganda as an instrument of the state. During the Great War, the federa...

At the height of World War I, in the winter of 1917--1918, one of the Progressive era's most successful muckracking journalists, Ray Stannard Baker (1870--1946), set out on a special mission to Europe on behalf of the Wilson administration. While posing as a foreign correspondent for the New Republic and the New York World, Baker assessed public opinion in Europe about the war and postwar settlement. American officials in the White House and State Department held Baker's wide-ranging, tren...

In 1914, the Associated Newspapers sent correspondent Herbert Corey to Europe on the day Great Britain declared war on Germany. During the Great War that followed, Corey reported from France, Britain, and Germany, visiting the German lines on both the western and eastern fronts. He also reported from Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, and Serbia. When the Armistice was signed in November 1918, Corey defied the rules of the American Expeditionary Forces and crossed into Germany. ...

Ever since the invention of the telegraph, journalists have sought to remove the barriers of time and space. Today, we readily accept that reporters can jet quickly to a distant location and broadcast instantly from a satellite-connected, video-enabled cell phone hanging from their belts. But now that live news coverage is possible from virtually anywhere, is foreign correspondence better? And what are the implications of recent changes in journalistic technology for policy makers and thei...

Finding the News tells Peter Copeland’s fast-paced story of becoming a distinguished journalist. Starting in Chicago as a night police reporter, Copeland went on to work as a war correspondent in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa before covering national politics in Washington, DC, where he rose to be bureau chief of the E. W. Scripps Company. The lessons he learned about accuracy and fairness during his long career are especially relevant today, given widespread concerns...

A lost literary relic of the First World War, Common Cause tells the story of Jeremy Robson, a crusading newspaper editor in the fictional midwestern town of Fenchester. The Guardian’s muckraking has led special interests to withhold advertising in order to drive Robson out of business. But he and local plutocrats put their differences aside when war is declared in 1917 in order to attack the German-American community for its supposed fealty to their Fatherland. Commo...

In all of journalism, nowhere are the stakes higher than in foreign news-gathering. For media owners, it is the most difficult type of reporting to finance; for editors, the hardest to oversee. Correspondents, roaming large swaths of the planet, must acquire expertise that home-based reporters take for granted—facility with the local language, for instance, or an understanding of local cultures. Adding further to the challenges, they must put news of the world in context for an audience wi...

On May 7, 1945, Associated Press reporter Ed Kennedy became the most famous -- or infamous -- American correspondent of World War II. On that day in France, General Alfred Jodl signed the official documents as the Germans surrendered to the Allies. Army officials allowed a select number of reporters, including Kennedy, to witness this historic moment -- but then instructed the journalists that the story was under military embargo. In a courageous but costly move, Kennedy defied the militar...

National Bestseller • One of the year's most acclaimed works of nonfictionA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, New York Post, Fast CompanyFrom legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a "masterly" (New York Times) reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of...

Beginning with the assassination of McKinley and ending with the defeat of the League of Nations by the United States Senate, the twenty-year period covered by John Dos Passos in this lucid and fascinating narrative changed the whole destiny of America. This is the story of the war we won and the peace we lost, told with a clear historical perspective and a warm interest in the remarkable people who guided the United States through one of the most crucial periods.Foremost in the ca...