Reviews in American History : My Publications
"The Image and the Truth of the Eisenhower Years"
- David Haven Blake. Liking Ike: Eisenhower, Advertising, and the Rise of Celebrity Politics.
- Irwin F. Gellman. The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961.
Reviews in American History asked me to do a review of these two books. It wasn't easy. I liked both books but their approaches could not have been more different. Blake searches for the moment mass media moved image-making into the heart of presidential politics, and he concludes that "the path to contemporary [presidential politics] runs directly through" Eisenhower (p. 15). By contrast, in The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 Irwin F. Gellman hopes to shatter the received images we have of the Eisenhower Administration, and particularly our image of Richard Nixon. He wants to remind us of "the story the historical record tells" free of subsequent bias and distortion (p. xii). Thus, one book is all about image, the other all about fact. The contrasting length of each book reflects its different approach: Liking Ike comes in at a judicious 212 pages, just about the same length as the 202 pages of the appendix, footnotes, and bibliography of President and Apprentice.
by Grant Madsen
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