No president—no era of American politics—has been so intensively and sharply examined at a time when so many prime witnesses to hitherto untold or misinterpreted facets of a life, a career, and a period of history could still be persuaded to speak. The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that set LBJ apart. Chronicling the startling early emergence of Johnson’s political genius, it follows him from his Texas boyhood through the years of the Depression in the Texas hill Country to the triumph of his congressional debut in New Deal Washington, to his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, of the national power for which he hungered. We see in him, from earliest childhood, a fierce, unquenchable necessity to be first, to win, to dominate—coupled with a limitless capacity for hard, unceasing labor in the service of his own ambition. Caro shows us the big, gangling, awkward young Lyndon—raised in one of the country’s most desperately poor and isolated areas, his education mediocre at best, his pride stung by his father’s slide into failure and financial ruin—lunging for success, moving inexorably toward that ultimate “impossible” goal that he sets for himself years before any friend or enemy suspects what it may be.We watch him, while still at college, instinctively (and ruthlessly) creating the beginnings of the political machine that was to serve him for three decades. We see him employing his extraordinary ability to mesmerize and manipulate powerful older men, to mesmerize (and sometimes almost enslave) useful subordinates. We see him carrying out, before his thirtieth year, his first great political inspiration: tapping-and becoming the political conduit for-the money and influence of the new oil men and contractors who were to grow with him to immense power. We follow, close up, the radical fluctuations of his relationships with the formidable “Mr. Sam” Rayburn (who loved him like a son and whom he betrayed) and with FDR himself. And we follow the dramas of his emotional life-the intensities and complications of his relationships with his family, his contemporaries, his girls; his wooing and winning of the shy Lady Bird; his secret love affair, over many years, with the mistress of one of his most ardent and generous supporters . . . Johnson driving his people to the point of exhausted tears, equally merciless with himself . . . Johnson bullying, cajoling, lying, yet inspiring an amazing loyalty . . . Johnson maneuvering to dethrone the unassailable old Jack Garner (then Vice President of the United States) as the New Deal’s “connection” in Texas, and seize the power himself . . . Johnson raging . . . Johnson hugging . . . Johnson bringing light and, indeed, life to the worn Hill Country farmers and their old-at-thirty wives via the district’s first electric lines. We see him at once unscrupulous, admirable, treacherous, devoted. And we see the country that bred him: the harshness and “nauseating loneliness” of the rural life; the tragic panorama of the Depression; the sudden glow of hope at the dawn of the Age of Roosevelt. And always, in the foreground, on the move, LBJ. Here is Lyndon Johnson—his Texas, his Washington, his America—in a book that brings us as close as we have ever been to a true perception of political genius and the American political process.

    On April 4th, 1968 a shot rang out in the Memphis sky bringing to a close the life of the last great American hero, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jnr.Although known to most for the delivery of his "I Have a Dream" address, which followed the peaceful march on Washington DC of 250,000 people, and as the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (at age thirty-five), King in his eleven years as elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organisation formed to provide new leadership to the then burgeoning civil rights movement, travelled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action.Let the Trumpet Sound is the detailed examination of this life, written by Stephen B Oates, winner of the Robert E Kennedy Memorial Book Award and the Christopher Award.

    Told with the same stylistic flair and attention to detail as the bestselling At Dawn We Slept, Miracle at Midway brings together eyewitness accounts from the men who commanded and fought on both sides. The sweeping narrative takes readers into the thick of the action and shows exactly how American strategies and decisions led to the triumphant victory that paved the way for the defeat of Japan. "A stirring, even suspenseful narrative . . . The clearest and most complete account so far." (Newsday) "Something special among war histories . . . No other gives both sides of the battle in as detailed and telling a manner."(Chicago Sun-Times) "A gripping and convincing account." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

     There are many Benjamin Franklins -- or at least he has taken on many different forms in the history books of the last two centuries. Some historians have shown us an aged statesman whose wise and steadying influence kept the Constitutional Convention together in 1787, while others have conjured up sensational tales of a lecherous old diplomat. Unfounded myths are now being repeated and embellished in school textbooks and educational television programs.Which of all these Benjamin Franklins, if any, is real? This book is an attempt to answer that question. The Real Benjamin Franklin seats us across the table from the one person who really knew Benjamin Franklin -- that is, Franklin himself -- and gives him an opportunity to explain his life and ideas in his own words. Part I of this book details his exciting biography, and Part II includes his most important and insightful writings, all carefully documented from original sources. Highly acclaimed by many, including Glenn Beck of the Fox News Channel. Published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a nonprofit educational foundation dedicated to restoring Constitutional principles in the tradition of America's Founding Fathers. The National Center for Constitutional Studies...is doing a fine public service in educating Americans about the principles of the Constitution. -- Ronald Reagan, President of the United States

    The third edition incorporates recent scholarship and addresses renewed areas of interest in the Civil War/Reconstruction era including the motivations and experiences of common soldiers and the role of women in the war effort.

    With dramatic, driving power, John Keegan describes the massed armies—American, Canadian, English, French, German, and Polish—at successive stages of the invasion. As he details the strategies of the military engagements, Keegan brilliantly shows how each of the armies reflected its own nation's values and traditions. In a new introduction written especially to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day, he contemplates the ways the events at the battle of Normandy still reverberate today.“The best military historian of our generation.” –Tom Clancy “John Keegan writes about war better than almost anyone in our century.” –The Washington Post Book World “Very dramatic… Very well done… a book which conjures romance from some very hard fighting.” –A. J. P. Taylor, The New York Review of Books “The story of this vast, complex, and risky amphibious assault, and the campaign which followed, has been told many times, but never better than by John Keegan.” –The Wall Street Journal

    It is the compelling story of racial ideologies, southwestern politics, and incendiary journalism, and of an embattled black community's struggle to hold onto its land and freedom. More than just the chronicle of one of the nation's most devastating racial pogroms, this critically acclaimed study of American race relations is, above all, a gripping story of terror and lawlessness, and of courage, heroism, and human perseverance.

    This updated edition of Gaddis' classic carries the history of containment through the end of the Cold War.Beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt's postwar plans, Gaddis provides a thorough critical analysis of George F. Kennan's original strategy of containment, NSC-68, The Eisenhower-Dulles New Look, the Kennedy-Johnson flexible response strategy, the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of detente, and now acomprehensive assessment of how Reagan - and Gorbechev - completed the process of containment, thereby bringing the Cold War to an end.He concludes, provocatively, that Reagan more effectively than any other Cold War president drew upon the strengths of both approaches while avoiding their weaknesses. A must-read for anyone interested in Cold War history, grand strategy, and the origins of the post-Cold War world.

    Through these photos, plus diaries, memoirs, letters, and journals, Women of the West introduces 11 real frontier women whose words combine to re-create a place and time when resourcefulness and courage were demanded of everyone. This is American history, not as it was romanticized, but as it was lived.

    Newton knew repression first hand and became a symbol of Black urban resistance in the United States, as well as a hero to radical political movements all over the world. From a handful of men the Panthers grew into a major organization, operating community programmes wherever they based themselves. Since his death, Newton's legacy and work remains controversial, and is now being rediscovered by a new generation.

    Treating Queen Liliuokalani's life with authority, accuracy and detail, Betrayal is tremendously informative concerning the entire period of missionary activity and foreign encroachment in the Islands.

    A vivid, emotional account of the war.

    The first of a three-volume history of the United States of America, The Vineyard of Liberty covers the period from the framing of the Constitutions in 1787 to Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 & offers a brilliant interpretation of the American attempt to preserve liberty.

    Marshall; one of the greatest generals in our history, a private, often enigmatic man, whose life was marked by incredible peaks and awesome depths. Time and again Marshall put his career on the line before his political superiors and military contemporaries and rivals. He made what seemed like a tragic mistake at Pearl Harbor, but turned that disaster into a launching pad to victory. By facing down arrogant statesmen and politicians, he single-handedly decided policy that meant the difference, not just between victory or defeat, but between peace or war. He had to fight for his nation’s interests and sometimes its very life -both as Chief of Staff during World War II and as Secretary of State in the raw, cold, hungry postwar world that followed. The remarkable thing about Marshall was that he never lied, either in his own interest or in his country’s. A superb negotiator and a brilliant public speaker, he could manipulate the most stubborn, difficult and politically agile men, including Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. He had wit, persuasion, and charm a great deal of charm, as a number of famous and beautiful women discovered. In a world of overpaid heroes and untrustworthy officials, Marshall made it to the top and maintained his principles, though not without pain, struggle and suffering.This book lays bare the anguishing incidents in Marshall’s life. It tells the awful truth about his wedding night. It tells of the General’s torment when his stepson was killed by a German sniper in Italy, while knowing that he could have kept his stepson alive. It tells of how General MacArthur hated Marshall and tried to hamstring his career. It shows how General Eisenhower — who owed everything to Marshall — finally showed his gratitude in an abysmal act. It discloses the secret events behind Marshall’s mission to China and why it failed. It reveals untold stories about how Marshall went about organizing and winning World War II for the Allies, then, having won the war, how he went on to save the peace by keeping Europe from starvation with the Marshall Plan, stemming the panic in Washington over MacArthur’s behavior in Korea, counselling Presidents,‘ and instilling confidence in prime ministers.There will never be another man like Marshall..

     — Yale University Press

    Over 400 Utah ghost towns are covered and hundreds more lost treasure tales are told. Illustrated with 120 historical photographs and a dozen maps. Each chapter is arranged geographically for each section of the state and includes a general locator map. Some Dreams Die has been regularly selling online for $100 a copy and up! This is your chance to order an affordable edition.

    Jordan has traveled the back roads and hidden trails of rural Texas in search of such cemeteries. With camera in hand, he has visited more than one thousand cemeteries created and maintained by the Anglo-American, black, Indian, Mexican, and German settlers of Texas. His discoveries of sculptured stones and mounds, hex signs and epitaphs, intricate landscapes and unusual decorations represent a previously unstudied and unappreciated wealth of Texas folk art and tradition. Texas Graveyards not only marks the distinct ethnic and racial traditions in burial practices but also preserves a Texas legacy endangered by changing customs, rural depopulation, vandalism, and the erosion of time.

    The frontiersmen have become an integral part of our history and folklore, but the Westering experiences of American women are equally central to an accurate picture of what life was like on the frontier.Through the diaries, letters, and reminiscences of women who participated in this migration, Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey gives us primary source material on the lives of these women, who kept campfires burning with buffalo chips and dried weeds, gave birth to and cared for children along primitive and dangerous roads, drove teams of oxen, picked berries, milked cows, and cooked meals in the middle of a wilderness that was a far cry from the homes they had left back east. Still (and often under the disapproving eyes of their husbands) they found time to write brave letters home or to jot a few weary lines at night into the diaries that continue to enthrall us.In her new foreword, Professor Mary Clearman Blew explores the enduring fascination with this subject among both historians and the general public, and places Schlissel’s groundbreaking work into an intriguing historical and cultural context.

    Marshall Foster and Mary-Elaine Swanson recount the Christian heritage of America, and what to do to get it back.

    The author describes his archeological excavation of a seventeenth-century English settlement in Virginia and his discovery of evidence of the early colonial way of life.

    

    Washington.

    They risked their fortunes and, sometimes, their very lives. And for those too impatient to wait for the bonanza of a rich ore strike, or for the cattle to multiply, or for the town to develop, the gambling table offered an opportunity for instant riches. The almost universal acceptance and popularity of gambling games on the frontier was predictable, and the rise of the professional gambler inevitable. It was a time of almost unlimited personal freedom in a tolerant society, with few to call gambling a sin, a crime, or a folly.The American public was introduced to the frontier gambler very early when a number of them became folk heroes and were interviewed in the popular press of the time. Later, fictional characters made known the western gambler stereotype now seen in movies and on television. Seeking to separate the myth from the reality, Robert K. DeArment gives us more than fiction in this book. Here we meet the long vanished and almost forgotten historical frontier gamblers who, between the years 1850 and 1910, were to be found playing their trade in every settlement from the Gulf of Mexico to the Klondike, Not many found fortunes, but some discovered at the tables an exciting way of life, a calling true and real for them as the law, medicine, or the clergy was for others.DeAement’s research into the lives of the well-known and less-known frontier gamblers provide a story replete with the color and excitement if the Old West. The Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and their women—wives, mistresses, and colleagues in gambling establishments—are here, honestly described in a refreshing, readable manner.

    Extensively researched in primary sources, Baptized in Blood is a significant and well-written study of the South’s civil religion, one of two public faiths in America. In his comparison, Wilson finds the Lost Cause offered defeated Southerners a sense of meaning and purpose and special identity as a precarious but distinct culture. Southerners may have abandoned their dream of a separate political nation after Appomattox, but they preserved their cultural identity by blending Christian rhetoric and symbols with the rhetoric and imagery of Confederate tradition.“Civil religion” has been defined as the religious dimension of a people that enables them to understand a historical experience in transcendent terms. In this light, Wilson explores the role of religion in postbellum southern culture and argues that the profound dislocations of Confederate defeat caused southerners to think in religious terms about the meaning of their unique and tragic experience. The defeat in a war deemed by some as religious in nature threw into question the South’s relationship to God; it was interpreted in part as a God-given trial, whereby suffering and pain would lead Southerners to greater virtue and strength and even prepare them for future crusades. From this reflection upon history emerged the civil religion of the Lost Cause.While recent work in southern religious history has focused on the Old South period, Wilson’s timely study adds to our developing understanding of the South after the Civil War. The Lost Cause movement was an organized effort to preserve the memory of the Confederacy. Historians have examined its political, literary, and social aspects, but Wilson uses the concepts of anthropology, sociology, and historiography to unveil the Lost Cause as an authentic expression of religion. The Lost Cause was celebrated and perpetuated with its own rituals, mythology, and theology; as key celebrants of the religion of the Lost Cause, Southern ministers forged it into a religious movement closely related to their own churches.In examining the role of civil religion in the cult of the military, in the New South ideology, and in the spirit of the Lost Cause colleges, as well as in other aspects, Wilson demonstrates effectively how the religion of the Lost Cause became the institutional embodiment of the South’s tragic experience.

    The intricacies of these findings have increased over recent decades, but only limited attention has been paid to what the archaeological record can tell us about the transfer of cultural knowledge through apprenticeship.Apprenticeship is broadly defined as the transmission of culture through a formal or informal teacher–pupil relationship. This collection invites a wide discussion, citing case studies from all over the world and yet focuses the scholarship into a concise set of contributions. The chapters in this volume demonstrate how archaeology can benefit greatly from the understanding of the social dimensions of knowledge transfer. This book also examines apprenticeship in archaeology against a backdrop of sociological and cognitive psychology literature, to enrich the understanding of the relationship between material remains and enculturation.Each of the authors in this collection looks specifically at how material remains can reveal several specific aspects of ancient cultures: What is the human potential for learning? How do people learn? Who is teaching? Why are they learning? What are the results of such learning? How do we recognize knowledge transfer in the archaeological record? These fundamental questions are featured in various forms in all chapters of the book. With case studies from the American Southwest, Alaska, Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Mesopotamia, this book will have broad appeal for scholars—particularly those concerned with cultural transmission and traditions of learning and education—all over the world.

    

    Such are the years 1775-85, which turn colonists into rebels, rebels into statesmen, and statesmen into ambassadors. This vital decade, when Yankees "go to court" for friendship and aid, provides a lively narrative as told by Susan Mary Alsop.The court is Versailles and the Yankees are America's first diplomats. France's avowed enmity toward England is America's salvation, for the colonial rebels lack both diplomatic expertise and an equitable exchange for money, munitions, and supplies. So difficult is the task of sustaining a Franco-American alliance that even the imperturbable Benjamin Franklin complains of being "indisposed by, continual anxiety."The European exploits of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and others are colorful histories replete with intrigue. For not only do these resilient ambassadors suffer the fear of failure, the rebuff of monarchies, and the demands of unreason, they also withstand the schemes of double agents, spies, and traitors. But success is imperative; without France's continued support, the War of Independence cannot be won.Susan Mary Alsop is a descendant of John Jay. Access to private documents provides stories never before told and pictures never before published. Susan Mary Alsop's humane approach toward history and her elegant, witty style vitalize those events, of two centuries ago, aptly described by Benjamin Franklin as "a miracle of human affairs."

    But Tocqueville's ride from the St. Clair River to the wilderness of Saginaw Bay became, for Reeves, a walk into the wildness of Detroit. Tocqueville's conversations with an embittered ex-President, John Quincy Adams, echoed over the years when Reeves asked similar questions of Richard Nixon. Tocqueville interviewed the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, the richest man in America. Reeves traced the signer's lineage to the direct descendant who was not admitted to the great medical school that stands on an old family estate.Who are these nomad people, the Americans? How does this democracy of theirs work? Tocqueville asked and answered those questions in his time, and Reeves asked them again of the governors and the governed, of presidents and priests, of laborers and lawyers, in offices in Washington, prison cells in Philadelphia, banks in Manhattan, and classrooms in Boston and Los Angeles.Ultimately, the American is more optimistic than the Frenchman was. Tocqueville believed that a democratic people could never rise above themselves and their own petty demands and hatreds. Reeves discovered, almost with astonishment, a people better than his predictions, better than their leaders--and, at their best, almost as good as their ideals.

    That historic move came in 1836. This study, based heavily on a wide variety of primary sources, is distinguished for its Creek perspective on tribal affairs during a period of upheaval.

    Whitehead

    It is a book about a man who speaks to the future with a vision of the past, promising a return to the golden age he believes was America in his childhood. It is a book about Ronald Wilson Reagan and the ways he grew and mastered the communicative skills which made him a conservative folk hero, two-time Governor of California, and President.It is a book about a boy who found "a clean kind of hatred"in playing football and who practiced announcing imaginary football games into a broomstick microphone. This boy was a dreamer, who read about the lives of America's heroes and imagined he was one of them. He was an optimist, who remained so even when the dreams of his family were crushed by the Depression and who thrilled to the message of hope in Franklin Roosevelt's inaugural speech. This is a book about a conservative Republican with liberal Democratic heroes.Reagan is also a warts-included critical biography of a resourceful politician who is rarely as simple as he seems. It is a book about a man who escaped the shadow of his father's alcoholism, the poverty and obscurity of Dixon, Illinois, the setback of being fired from his first radio announcing job and the typecasting of Warner Brothers, to become first a competent actor and then the ablest political communicator of his time.The book traces Reagan's achievements and failures in Hollywood and Sacramento, records his courage and his lies, and tells how he went on to become President of the United States. Finally, Reagan is an account of how he came to grips with that presidency and of what he hopes to achieve in the time remaining to him. "What I'd really like to do," he told Lou Cannon, "is go down in history as the man who made Americans believe in themselves again."

    Both combat and non-combat aircraft are covered by text detailing each type's origin, history, and variants, followed by a full technical specification.

    . . . This book adds immeasurably to the current work on sentimental culture and American cultural history and brings to its task an inquisitive, fresh, and intelligent perspective.”—Dianne F. Sadoff, American Quarterly Karen Halttunen draws a vivid picture of the social and cultural development of the upwardly mobile middle class in mid-nineteenth-century America, basing her study on a survey of the conduct manuals and fashion magazines of the times. “A compelling and beautifully developed study. … Halttunen provides us with a subtle book that gently unfolds from her mastery of the subject and intelligent prose.”—Paula S. Fass, Journal of Social History“Halttunen has done her homework—the research has been tremendous, the notes and bibliography are impressive, and the text is peppered with hundreds of quotes—and gives some real insight into an area of American culture and history where we might have never bothered to look.”—John Hopkins, Times Literary Supplement“The kind of imaginative history that opens up new questions, that challenges conventional historical understanding, and demonstrates how provocative and exciting cultural history can be.”—William R. Leach, The New England Quarterly“A stunning contribution to American cultural history.”—Alan Trachtenberg

    Contains information about the birthplaces, homes, and workplaces of over fifteen hundred literary figures from Colonial times to the present.

    With Life Studies, his third book, he found the intense, highly personal voice that made him the foremost American poet of his generation. He held strong, complex and very public political views. His private life was turbulent, marred by manic depression and troubled marriages. But in this superb biography (first published in 1982) the poet Ian Hamilton illuminates both the life and the work of Lowell with sympathetic understanding and consummate narrative skill.'Our one consolation for Ian Hamilton's early death is that his work seems to have lived on with undiminished force... The critical prose, in particular, still sets a standard that nobody else comes near.' Clive James

    The author traces a constellation of intimately related ideas - about the nature of parental authority and filial rights, of moral obligation of Scripture, of the growth of the mind and the nature of historical progress - from their most important English and continental expressions in a variety of literary and theological texts, to their transmission, reception and application in Revolutionary America and in the early national period of American culture.

    Beyond Greed

    Lawrence River and that some Nordics migrated west, intermarrying with the Dakota tribes to form the Sioux nation

    It is a journey: from 1880 to the present, from Custer to Mencken, from Kansas City to Arlington National Cemetary. Hilary Masters, a gifted and seasoned novelist, has family, a patchwork quilt cut from memory and stitched with his own understanding. The poet Edgar Lee Masters was sixty years old in 1928 when his son Hilary was born. He had enjoyed his brief hour in the sun with the spectacular success of his Spoon River Anthology, but nothing he wrote after it could revive his subsiding fame. He was a tough midwesterner transplanted to the literary capital of the East, and his last-stand battle for health, fortune, youth, and repute left little room for a child in his chaotic New York life. Accordingly, young Hilary split his time between his maternal grandparents' home in Kansas City, spiritually located somewhere between Tom Pendergast's Democratic machine and the vanished frontiers of the Wild West, and the holiday visits with his parents in New York; and, he writes, 'No one told me it was unusual.' The virtuosity of Last Stands lies not in its anecdotes, irrestible though they are, but in its brilliant narrative technique. Masters has taken the lessons of geographical portability learned in his youth and applied them with astonishing assurance to chronology as well. The result is a narrative landscape over which past and present play tag, teasing, chasing, catching, each other, a landscape through which we travel, marveling. The old American horseback frontier of Master's grandparents' past, the family together for short continues in New York or North Carolinia - the funerals, the pranks, the friendships - all this becomes, under Master's pen, the stuff of an excursion covering a hundred years, thousands of miles, and an immeasurable depth of spirit.

    The Biography of Admimiral Hyman G Rickover,the acknowledges "Father of the Nuclear Navy".Rickover was an acknowledged leader and engineering genius,he was also known for his ascerbic personality.He served his country for 60 years in the Navy.Over these years he made many powerful friends and just as powerful enemies.Finnally president Reagan was able to retire him,something two previous presidents weren't able to do.This is a well research and penetrating biography.

    clean and tight

    Dewey - the famous gangbuster of the thirties, twice candidate for president, a maker of the modern Republican party, the key behind-the-scenes strategist of both Dwight Eisenhower's and Richard Nixon's Presidential nominations.On whatever level he acted, Thomas Dewey made government work, as he made the judicial system work when, as the famous New York district attorney, he rounded up the city's most powerful and infamous gangsters. He was ruthless as well as imaginative, ambitious as well as able. Dewey's record deserves to be known and his personality explored. Richard N. Smith has done both, against the backdrop of the political and economic desperation that launched Dewey to national prominence while he was still in his early thirties.Thomas E. Dewey and His Times profiles the system as well as a man who worked within it. Dewey was a creative adapter and his achievements and his failures say a great deal about the appeal of men "who get things done."What is always recalled is the fateful and ironic November in 1948 when Dewey unexpectedly lost the Presidency to Harry S Truman, but his continuing enormous influence over the Republican party is less well known. For fifteen years Tom Dewey and Robert Taft did mortal battle over the soul fo the Republican party - and Dewey was the last liberal to win the fight. His predominant behind-the-scenes role in nominating both Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon in 1952 has never before been documented as it is here, nor have Dewey's private activities in later administrations of both parties. Likewise, his relationship with FDR, and his agreement to bury Pearl Harbor as a campaign issue in 1944, is explored in detail for the first time, supported by recently declassified National Security council papers, memoranda from the FDR library, and interviews with Dewey's own associates.Thomas E. Dewey and Richard M. Nixon have often been compared, and there are some striking surface parallels. They were small-town boys who clawed their way to the top of their professions, who won office in spite of their personalities that inspired little public affection, who did not shy away from innovation and who cared passionately about making their party more relevant to the age. Yet Dewey had a fundamental integrity that complemented his gut-fighting instincts. In some ways he was a tougher, harsher, more honest Nixon. His record in Albany is a blueprint for Republicans who want to make government work without sacrificing humane considerations. He founded a state university, built a thruway, enacted the first civil rights laws in America, did battle against tuberculosis and cancer -- and never submitted an unbalanced budget. When he left office in 1955, state taxes were 10 percent lower than when he took the oath of office for the first time, ten years earlier.Richard N. Smith spent a year going through the Thomas E. Dewey Collection in Rochester, N.Y., and interviewed hundreds of Dewey associates, friends, family, and foes. Thomas E. Dewey and His Times is about the world Dewey inhabited as well as the party he led through tumultuous years. But it is also a sensitive and, in the end, moving portrait of a much misunderstod man. In private life, as Smith makes clear, there is about Dewey a poignant sense of what might have been, of youthful genius pressed too far too fast, an almost tragic element at work behind the cool, precise exterior.