This year proved to be one of the wilder presidential election years in our nation's history. As I followed the constant ups and downs, I found, as always, that the most soothing balms in tumultuous times are good books. Fortunately, 2024 gave me many choices.
Presidential history is my bread and butter, and there was a strong slate of books worth reading in this category this year. One of my favorites was Behind Closed Doors, by former Nixon and Reagan aide Ken Khachigian. Khachigian's closeness to both men gave him some superior access — and insights. In a lengthy appendix that is worth reading as we are about to see the start of a new presidential administration, Khachigian provides an eleven-page memo from Nixon to Reagan in which Nixon advised Reagan to make sure his political appointees are loyal. Nixon gave two interesting examples of non-loyalists joining his administration, to its detriment. First was Leon Panetta, who "opposed everything we stood for and eventually resigned and now is a liberal Democratic member of Congress." He also noted Henry Kissinger's hiring of liberals "like Morton Halperin, Tony Lake, etc., into the National Security Council staff." According to Nixon, Kissinger assured him that "they were 'professionals' and were honorable men" and yet, Nixon wrote, "they have to a man turned on him and on me."
Another book that has some relevance as we anticipate a new administration is John Robert Greene's Little Helpers. This short but engaging book on Harry Truman aide Major General Harry Vaughan is a warning about the dangers of cronyism. Vaughan is little remembered today, but he was an old friend of Truman's and a toxic player inside the Truman White House. The lesson of these two books is that presidents must choose their staffs wisely on grounds of both ideology and character.
Another lesson we learn from the Truman administration is the importance of keeping the vice president up to date on matters in case he needs to take over. This was the considered opinion of none other than the great Winston Churchill. In Robert Schmuhl's Mr. Churchill in the White House, we learn about Churchill's herculean efforts to befriend Franklin Delano Roosevelt but also his frustration with how Roosevelt kept his own vice president in the dark. According to Schmuhl, it was extraordinary to Churchill "that Roosevelt had not made his deputy and potential successor thoroughly acquainted with the whole story and brought him into the decisions which were being taken. This proved of grave disadvantage to our affairs."
A final lesson from this year's presidential-history books is that one should do the opposite of what Woodrow Wilson did as president. This is the consistent message of Christopher Cox's Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn, a magisterial look at a very flawed president and the memory-holing of Wilson's efforts against women's suffrage. Cox, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and first-time author, has a terrific photo section in the book that colorizes the characters and helps bring them to life. He is offended by, among other things, some of Wilson's early writings on Congress. As the former congressman notes acidly, "The fact that he was a 22-year-old student who had never even visited the House or Senate did not prevent him from confidently professing knowledge of what was fundamentally wrong with the inner workings of those institutions."
In addition to presidential history, I am also interested in governing, and there were a number of books that gave some helpful policy advice. In Family Unfriendly, columnist Tim Carney makes the case for more family-friendly policies to encourage Americans to have more kids. Carney is himself a father of six, so he practices what he preaches, and he does it with humor. As Carney writes, "The Bible tells us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. As a parent, all I have to do is wake up and — voilà! There are hungry, naked people already in my house." He also mentions my family-friendly neighborhood of Kemp Mill, Md., 30 times in the book, and in a positive way, which I also appreciated.
In Unprecedented Assault, J. T. Young, another first-time author, writes a riveting history of what he calls "the socialist Left" and its damaging impact on both the Democratic Party and on America. Young, a former Treasury and congressional aide, warns us that this "socialist Left" is interested in bringing about an America with "more centralized control, more limitations, and fewer individual freedoms."
Yuval Levin, in contrast, has written many books, and he has another winner in American Covenant. At a time when too many people see the Constitution as a dated document from which we should break free, Levin wants to double down on the Constitution in a variety of ways, including as a governing and a unifying document. Levin also uses his position as the editor of the fine quarterly National Affairs to bring in arguments and ideas from NA's many talented contributors.
It's not quite a policy book, but The Wolves of K Street, by brothers Brody and Luke Mullins, tells the story of powerful lobbyists such as Tommy Boggs, Paul Manafort, and Tony Podesta. These lobbyists had immense influence but sometimes questionable morals. One of the stories is about campaign guru Lee Atwater, who had a spiritual awakening on his deathbed. His former colleague Roger Stone was skeptical of Atwater's late-in-life conversion to Catholicism, noting dismissively, "Was the transformation real, or was it a desperate grasp? 'I'm gonna die, so just to be sure, get me a crucifix, a yarmulke, and a witch doctor!'"
One thing that appeals to me as a writer is books about writers. These are often tricky, since the No. 1 thing a writer must do is sit and write, which is not that interesting to read about. Yet I read four engaging books this year about writers who managed to live more than just sedentary lives. In Ayn Rand, Alexandra Popoff tells of the legendary libertarian's departure from the oppressive Soviet Union, her move to America, and her finding a job writing for the filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille. This improbable rise took place before Rand was 22 years old and before she wrote any of the works that made her famous.
The economist Glenn Loury got a later start in life, with a number of missteps delaying his emergence as a well-regarded economist and contrarian gadfly. In Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative, he takes the "confessions" part seriously, being remarkably open about the drug use and affairs that almost derailed a promising career. Somehow his carousing did not prevent him from being a prominent social critic and writer. His writings gained the attention of the legendary Irving Kristol, who, Loury writes, "made his career partially through the force of his own ideas and partially through his preternatural skill as a promoter of others who shared them, as a scout who could identify and cultivate talent, and as a connector who knew the value of introducing like-minded people to each other."
Another writer who faced challenges, though of a different sort, on her path to success was Judy Gruen. In her memoir Bylines and Blessings, she writes of trying to become a writer while also becoming religiously observant and how the two goals were sometimes in conflict. It's a heartwarming tale of both career and spiritual fulfillment.
I always like to include some books from the world of sports and entertainment, and this year, two books fit the bill. Kevin Baker's The New York Game, about the history of baseball in New York, is well written and fascinating. Baker describes many characters from baseball history, including Christy Mathewson, John McGraw, and Casey Stengel, who are largely known via their statistical accomplishments, and turns them into three-dimensional personalities. He also manages to write a good book about New York baseball even though he seems to despise New York's most prominent team, the Yankees.
In The Blues Brothers, Daniel de Visé tells the story of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd coming to Saturday Night Live and forming the Blues Brothers musical duo. I did not know that Belushi had already come to national attention before SNL, that blues musicians looked down on what Belushi and Aykroyd were doing and were resentful of them, or what an ordeal it was to make the eponymous movie. I did know what a prodigious drug user Belushi was, but even here de Visé has new details, such as the fact that the SNL staff would keep separate stashes of cocaine for Belushi since they knew that if they shared any amount with him, he would take all of it.
Finally, both my brother Gil and I released new books in the last year. I will leave it to others to discuss my book, but Gil's terrific To Resist the Academic Intifada is an epistolary memoir with a message and an action plan. Gil uses his own origin story and decades of experience in academia to provide advice and support for kids on today's campuses who are coping with an onslaught of antisemitic, anti-American, and anti-Western assaults.
The atmosphere on campus is indeed stifling, which is why we need good and informative books like the ones on this list. The vast majority of these come from nonacademics, and the most prominent academic on the list — Glenn Loury — gained renown as a critic of regnant academic trends. As long as academia remains what it is, I will continue to seek wisdom and knowledge elsewhere, and so will thinking people everywhere. Happy reading.