Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour
Author: Barbara Tuchman
With the lucidity and vividness that characterize all her work, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Barbara Tuchman, explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state—and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today.
"Barbara Tuchman is a wise and witty writer, a shrewd observer with a lively command of high drama."
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
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Martin Van Buren (The American Presidents Series)
Author: Ted Widmer
The first president born after America's independence ushers in a new era of no-holds-barred democracy The first "professional politician" to become president, the slick and dandyish Martin Van Buren was to all appearances the opposite of his predecessor, the rugged general and Democratic champion Andrew Jackson. Van Buren, a native Dutch speaker, was America's first ethnic president as well as the first New Yorker to hold the office, at a time when Manhattan was bursting with new arrivals. A sharp and adroit political operator, he established himself as a powerhouse in New York, becoming a U.S. senator, secretary of state, and vice president under Jackson, whose election he managed. His ascendancy to the Oval Office was virtually a foregone conclusion.Once he had the reins of power, however, Van Buren found the road quite a bit rougher. His attempts to find a middle ground on the most pressing issues of his day-such as the growing regional conflict over slavery-eroded his effectiveness. But it was his inability to prevent the great banking panic of 1837, and the ensuing depression, that all but ensured his fall from grace and made him the third president to be denied a second term. His many years of outfoxing his opponents finally caught up with him.Ted Widmer, a veteran of the Clinton White House, vividly brings to life the chaos and contention that plagued Van Buren's presidency-and ultimately offered an early lesson in the power of democracy.
The New York Times - Michael Kazin
Van Buren, as Widmer wisely concludes, was one of those ''not-quite-heroic'' figures without whom no democracy would operate for long. He didn't achieve greatness, but he set a great insight in spin: without vibrant opposition parties, self-government becomes a mockery of its ideals. For that alone, Little Van deserves to be remembered as a big man indeed.
Publishers Weekly
In the latest volume of Arthur Schlesinger's American Presidents series, Widmer (Young America) paints a brief but elegant portrait of our eighth president, who, Widmer says, created the modern political party system, for which he deserves our "grudging respect." Andrew Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) was also at various times Jackson's secretary of state, ambassador to the Court of St. James's and vice president. As Widmer relates, some newspapermen called the New York Democrat "the little magician" because of his diminutive frame and his deftness at political sleight of hand. Others-who criticized his response when the American economy ground to a halt shortly after his election in 1836-called him "Martin Van Ruin." Despite the collapse of financial markets in 1837, Van Buren held fast to his belief in the Jacksonian principles of limited federal government, states' rights and protection of the "people" from the "powerful." This led him to reject calls for a national bank and an independent treasury. Throughout his term, Van Buren effectively took no federal action to alleviate the economic crisis. Thus it was not surprising when, despite building the Democratic Party into a well-oiled machine, he went down to defeat after just one term, beaten by William Henry Harrison, the Virginian Whig of aristocratic background who posed as a simple rustic. All this Widmer relates powerfully, engagingly and efficiently. (Jan. 5) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Foreign Affairs
For readers who dismiss Martin Van Buren as a forgettable minor figure, Widmer's short biography may come as a revelation. Van Buren was in many respects the father of American mass democratic politics, leading the transformation of the elite republic of the Founding Fathers into the mass democracy of today. Widmer's book itself, unfortunately, is an uneven production that fails both the reader and Van Buren. Repeatedly confessing his inability to track Van Buren's devious steps in New York and national politics, Widmer is too frequently reduced to windy speculation. But forget the subtle background shading and the elusive facts: even Widmer's grasp on the obvious and the well known is not strong. Van Buren's rival and successor William Henry Harrison was not ill when he ran for president in 1840. Van Buren's predecessor and patron did not make "more than a few widows in Tennessee" regret sharp exchanges their husbands had with him. Andrew Jackson killed one married man in a duel, not "more than a few." And nothing could be less useful than Widmer's hapless account of the sub-treasury system that was the centerpiece of Van Buren's economic program — except his superficial account of the economic forces behind the Panic of 1837.
Kirkus Reviews
Pity poor Martin Van Buren: reviled in life, ignored in death, undistinguished enough that biographers have had a hard time finding much to say about him. Until now. Clinton administration advisor Widmer (Young America, 1999) reckons that Van Buren will always be considered one of our lesser leaders: "His presidency [1837-41] produced no lasting monument of social legislation, sustained several disastrous reversals, and ended with ignominious defeat after one short term." Van Buren is unknown today, Widmer adds, mostly because no one is looking for him, a lost figure in the years between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. He was well known in his day, however, and even though always something of an outsider, the first of the non-Anglo presidents, a native speaker of Dutch and of humble origins, Van Buren forged a new Democratic Party made up of southern planters, New York financiers, and New England industrialists alike. Such a broad constituency, however, forced the president into many compromises: Though he didn't quite oppose slavery, for instance, he quietly supported certain civil rights for African-Americans. (Too quietly, it appears: In 1839, he issued an executive order demanding the return of rebellious slaves to their Spanish owners, an act making him a villain in Steven Spielberg's film Amistad.) As a result, both northern abolitionists and southern slaveholders came to mistrust Van Buren, who, Widmer insists, had other virtues: He refused to invade Texas, championed the cause of the urban poor, and advanced ideas that would cause historian Frederick Jackson Turner to consider him an architect of progressivism. Yet Van Buren also presided over the ruinous Panic of 1837, and hefailed to push through his pet reform-to create an independent treasury. Though crafty and diligent, in the end not even the seasoned politician dubbed the "The Fox" could weather all the storms that sank his administration. Well written and sensible-especially when Widmer notes that "it's antidemocratic to expect all of our leaders to be great." Q.E.D.
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