Audiobook13 hours
The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century
Written by Scott Miller
Narrated by Arthur Morey
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
In 1901, as America tallied its gains from a period of unprecedented imperial expansion, an assassin's bullet shattered the nation's confidence. The shocking murder of President William McKinley threw into stark relief the emerging new world order of what would come to be known as the American Century. The President and the Assassin is the story of the momentous years leading up to that event, and of the very different paths that brought together two of the most compelling figures of the era: President William McKinley and Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who murdered him.
The two men seemed to live in eerily parallel Americas. McKinley was to his contemporaries an enigma, a president whose conflicted feelings about imperialism reflected the country's own. Under its popular Republican commander-in-chief, the United States was undergoing an uneasy transition from a simple agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse spreading its influence overseas by force of arms. Czolgosz was on the losing end of the economic changes taking place-a first-generation Polish immigrant and factory worker sickened by a government that seemed focused solely on making the rich richer. With a deft narrative hand, journalist Scott Miller chronicles how these two men, each pursuing what he considered the right and honorable path, collided in violence at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
Along the way, listeners meet a veritable who's who of turn-of-the-century America: John Hay, McKinley's visionary secretary of state, whose diplomatic efforts paved the way for a half century of Western exploitation of China; Emma Goldman, the radical anarchist whose incendiary rhetoric inspired Czolgosz to dare the unthinkable; and Theodore Roosevelt, the vainglorious vice president whose 1898 charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba is but one of many thrilling military adventures recounted here.
Rich with relevance to our own era, The President and the Assassin holds a mirror up to a fascinating period of upheaval when the titans of industry grew fat, speculators sought fortune abroad, and desperate souls turned to terrorism in a vain attempt to thwart the juggernaut of change.
The two men seemed to live in eerily parallel Americas. McKinley was to his contemporaries an enigma, a president whose conflicted feelings about imperialism reflected the country's own. Under its popular Republican commander-in-chief, the United States was undergoing an uneasy transition from a simple agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse spreading its influence overseas by force of arms. Czolgosz was on the losing end of the economic changes taking place-a first-generation Polish immigrant and factory worker sickened by a government that seemed focused solely on making the rich richer. With a deft narrative hand, journalist Scott Miller chronicles how these two men, each pursuing what he considered the right and honorable path, collided in violence at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
Along the way, listeners meet a veritable who's who of turn-of-the-century America: John Hay, McKinley's visionary secretary of state, whose diplomatic efforts paved the way for a half century of Western exploitation of China; Emma Goldman, the radical anarchist whose incendiary rhetoric inspired Czolgosz to dare the unthinkable; and Theodore Roosevelt, the vainglorious vice president whose 1898 charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba is but one of many thrilling military adventures recounted here.
Rich with relevance to our own era, The President and the Assassin holds a mirror up to a fascinating period of upheaval when the titans of industry grew fat, speculators sought fortune abroad, and desperate souls turned to terrorism in a vain attempt to thwart the juggernaut of change.
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Reviews for The President and the Assassin
Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
4/5
20 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scott Miller's The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century is a parallel biography of President William McKinley and anarchist Leon Czolgosz, as well as the events that shaped them. Of McKinley, Miller argues, "At home and abroad, McKinley was the first president of the twentieth century in more than chronology" (pg. 332). Industry, innovation, and empire expanded under his watch, creating the modern presidency. Simultaneously, the poor saw their opportunities close and labor agitators faced brutal assault from captains of industry and their agents. Miller's account could easily have begun with a paraphrase of Charles Dickens, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." Miller demonstrates a skill for tying together the disparate threads of the turn-of-the-century into a readable and informative narrative. This is a good history to read over the summer and would be useful for teaching high school seniors in an AP class or college undergraduates.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very good read. Dry in spots but not as dry as other non-fiction. I enjoyed reading abt the Polish immigrant experience and the personal life of McKinley as well as the Pan Am experience.One thing for sure is that 112 years later,politics has NOT changed.Substiute terrorists for anarchists,the immigrant experience is the same also.Recommended.
I've been to the Roosevelt Inaugural site many times and always learned alot about McKinley assassination.But this book filled in alot of missing info for me. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interesting, informative, relaxed, succinct.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very interesting reading especially details about Emma Goldman, The Spanish American War, and Mckinley.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/55428. The President and the Assassin McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century, by Scott Miller (read 3 Dec 2016) This is a very readable 2011 book telling not only about the assassination of President McKinley but of a lot of other things which happened in the latter part of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, such as Homestead Strike, the sinking of the Maine and the Spanish-American War, the acquisition of the Philippines, the Boxer rising in China, the life of Emma Goldman, etc. There is no continuous narrative, but the story skips around by chapter. WE learn o the actual shooting of McKinley early on and then later in the book we get much more detail. Somehow I did not get the idea that the author had done as good a job at research as he should have, though there is an 18-page bibliography and 32 pages of footnoerage is a bit diffuse. But the account never drags and is extremely attention-holding. tes. In other words the book covers so many interesting events that maybe coverage is a bit diffuse. But the book never drags and is extremely attention-holding.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good book to cover both McKinley's life, administration, Spanish/American war and the assassination and aftermath.I found it remarkable that McKinley was originally uninterested in anything related in any additional land acquisitions until he was forced into war with the Spanish and then he became very greedy trying to annex the Phillipines, Cuba, and other Pacific islands. This book also brought to my attention anarchists that were working during McKinley's administration - I never knew.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A “Review” of The President and the AssassinWith a title like The President and the Assassin, you'd think this book was about a president and an assassin. And it is. Sort of. This book is less about the individuals and more about the period and the prevailing attitudes at the turn of the century. Granted, William McKinley is not one of the most well-known presidents. And surely there isn't much information regarding Leon Czolgosz. Still, I hoped for a little more sustenance regarding the two figures.But there's plenty here about industry, military, anarchy, politics, and society in the late nineteenth century. The author does wonderfully to portray the facts and withhold personal feelings. The late 1800s was a time that mirrors our own, and the United States was on the brink of huge change. The United States, having recovered from the Civil War, was considering a bold rejection of its anti-imperialist past in exchange for a bridge of U.S. islands that led straight into China. First, however, the U.S. needed to convince its people, so Teddy Roosevelt went scuba diving under a U.S. battleship, blew it up, and insisted revenge be taken on Spain. Problem was, the President himself wasn't completely convinced because he was actually one of the more decent presidents and wasn't about to go rushing into war when he suspected something fishy was going on (speaking of which, McKinley's relationship with his wife was out-and-out adorable, wasn't it? They should've had their own reality show. I mean, really, how many men out there can say they can show up William McKinley?) So the people are hungry for war with Spain and McKinley's backed into a corner and after so much time he relents (because for some reason he's now a little blood-thirsty himself) and wages war on... the Philippines? Oh yeah, bridge to China. Throw in a dash of desperate workers and all-too-knowing anarchists and you've got a good story.*So, interesting times indeed. A good book. Unlike the author, however, I've let my personal feelings jade this review. At least I can hide my rant under a misleading title and claim I was merely inspired by the author.*(Some readers may wish to take the above summary and insert the following words where appropriate: Dick Cheney, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Also, for proper parallels to be drawn, the sentence that begins “Problem was, the President...” must be removed. Some readers, on the other hand, may wish to beat me with a wooden spoon.)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What a fantastic and interesting book about McKinley and the beginnings of the labor movement, along with the life of the assassin. Seems they had the same problems, with slightly different names, that we have now and this was more than a hundred years ago. Same class divide, a movement protesting the protecting of the wealthy and anarchists instead of terrorists as well as an erratic economy. McKinley was quite a man, affable at all times, and well respected. Very well written and informative.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A fascinating book that offers a compelling and insightful look at the heights of America's industrial age and its imperialistic ambitions born out of the Manifest Destiny mentality, the anarchist movement, and political developments in Europe and east Asia, all within the conext of the assassination of President McKinley.