American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and the Politics of Division

Abstract

Historians have issues with forests and trees. On the one hand, historians depict discrete historical episodes. On the other hand, they must also integrate individual events into a larger narrative. Michael A. Cohen's American Maelstrom typifies this tension. A columnist for the Boston Globe and a former research fellow at the Century Foundation, Cohen combines a journalist's writerly verve with a historian's eye. The result is a deeply researched and well-written account of the 1968 presidential election. It is an outstanding history of the trees, but it misses the mark on the forest. Published as part of Oxford University Press's Pivotal Moments in American History series, the work is intended to comprise a deep-dive into particular moments. As with most any worthwhile book on contemporary political history, it was written with one eye on the past and the other squarely aimed at the present. To Cohen, 1968 established the basic contours of the divisive, roiling, and nasty waters of contemporary American politics. A conventional and largely accurate interpretation, the book scarcely tills new soil. Less useful for its whole than its parts, the work offers much through its inventive format.