Clearly, the U.S. presidential campaign has revealed every American’s truly ugly face. • America is racist: look at those cop killings, listen to Black Lives Matter, and see the statistics showing how disproportionately African-Americans end up imprisoned, on welfare and failing school. • America is sexist: …
Age Of Clinton Related
2016 In Context: 10 Clinton Moments to Remember
Three weeks from today, Americans finally will have a chance to vote for president of the United States — hundreds of other offices on ballots across the country. As a presidential historian who has written histories of presidential campaigning, of various presidents, of First Ladies, …
The Worst White House Christmases Ever
How Lincoln, Nixon, and Clinton managed to overcome their glum realities—political and personal—to put on a happy face for what’s supposed to be the most cheerful day of the year. It is a tension that’s launched many sappy holiday movies and songs. What happens when …
Gen X vs. Bill Clinton: Cobain and Clinton, “Seinfeld” and “Simpsons,” and the ’90s fight for America’s soul
Bill Clinton talked responsibility and hope. Gen X cynics — who even voted for him — had a different reality Excerpted from “The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s“ On April 8, 1994 an electrician named Gary Smith, dispatched to install a security system …
A Bill Clinton balance sheet: Peace, prosperity, pluralism, and progress
It’s time to take Bill Clinton, his presidency, and his times seriously. Historians dithered before getting right with Reagan, letting their political and intellectual disdain discourage thoughtful scholarship for over two decades after his inauguration. The media’s obsession with both Clintons’ genuine character flaws, have disappointed …
Embrace the ’70s, Hillary!
Clinton has long been reluctant to talk about her work during the 1970s. She should instead be promoting it. The continuing doubts about Hillary Clinton’s “authenticity” go beyond her email server. Many Americans feel she has not presented her life story, fully, honestly. Being more …
What Justin Trudeau can learn from Bill Clinton’s presidency
Having just ended nine years of conservative rule, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should look south, and learn from former U.S. president Bill Clinton’s successes — and failures. In 1993, Clinton — like Trudeau, a young, charismatic liberal — ended 12 years of conservative governance in the United States. The comedian Dennis …
The Five Revolutions of the 1990s (and One Counter-Revolution)
Trying to understand Bill Clinton’s presidency requires a new toolbox of words and concepts to understand what happened in the 1990s, not just during his presidency. As the first serious history of the Clinton era, my new book The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s, tracks …
Understanding the Culture of the Clinton Era
Writing about the Clintons as a real-time commentator during the 1990s and then again as an historian when writing my new book, The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s, was an interesting intellectual experience in charting my own evolution. Learning about the administration from …
Why we will all be singing the Benghazi blues…
On Thursday, when former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appears before the Senate Benghazi Committee for a new round of hearings, reporters with vivid historical imaginations will be pining for an epic battle. Melodramatic journalists may recall the 1950-1951 Kefauver Committee investigating organized crime, which …