Playing with Fire

The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics

De: Lawrence O'Donnell

Narrado por: Lawrence O'Donnell

From the host of MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, an important and enthralling new account of the presidential election that changed everything, the race that created American politics as we know it today.

The 1968 US presidential election was the young Lawrence O'Donnell's political awakening, and in the decades since it has remained one of his abiding fascinations. For years he has deployed one of America's shrewdest political minds to understanding its dynamics, not just because it is fascinating in itself but because in it is contained the essence of what makes America different and how we got to where we are now. Playing with Fire represents O'Donnell's master class in American electioneering, embedded in the epic human drama of a system and a country coming apart at the seams in real time.

Nothing went according to the script. LBJ was confident he'd dispatch with Nixon, the GOP frontrunner; Johnson's greatest fear and real nemesis was RFK. But Kennedy and his team, despite their loathing of the president, weren't prepared to challenge their own party's incumbent. Then, out of nowhere, Eugene McCarthy shocked everyone with his disloyalty and threw his hat in the ring to run against the president and the Vietnam War. A revolution seemed to be taking place, and LBJ, humiliated and bitter, began to look mortal. Then RFK leapt in, LBJ dropped out, and all hell broke loose. Two assassinations and a week of bloody riots in Chicago around the Democratic Convention later, and the old Democratic Party was a smoldering ruin, and, in the last triumph of old machine politics, Hubert Humphrey stood alone in the wreckage.

Suddenly Nixon was the frontrunner, having masterfully maintained a smooth façade behind which he feverishly held his party's right and left wings in the fold, through a succession of ruthless maneuvers to see off George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, and the great outside threat to his new Southern Strategy, the arch-segregationist George Wallace. But then, amazingly, Humphrey began to close, and so, in late October, Nixon pulled off one of the greatest dirty tricks in American political history, an act that may well meet the statutory definition of treason. The tone was set for Watergate and all else that was to follow, all the way through to today.

©2017 Lawrence O'Donnell (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"In this delightful combination of vivid storytelling and sharp political insight, Lawrence O'Donnell brings to life the most fascinating election of modern times. His book is filled with memorable anecdotes and colorful characters, from Roger Ailes and Richard Nixon to Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. But beneath the rollicking tale is a truly profound historical truth: how the Sixties still reverberates in our nation's soul." (Walter Isaacson)

"But O'Donnell, a former aide to Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, understands politics and its impact. He writes with an assurance and steady sense of pace that makes much of this seem new." (Ray Locker, USA Today)

“I love the way Lawrence thinks, I love the way he writes. Playing with Fire is him at his best - this is a thriller-like, propulsive tour through 1968, told by a man who is in love with American politics and who knows how all the dots connect. Brilliant and totally engrossing.” (Rachel Maddow)

Enlightening!

Who knew that Lawrence O’Donnell was such a good actor and performer? Certainly not me. His ability to inhabit characters enough to make clear who was who made the story and complex cast of political players understandable.
It is also eye opening to learn the historical context of many things happening today.

Reliving 1968 Is An Emotional Experience

When I was living in the middle of historical and dangerous times, I just got through it day to day. My classmates were heading to Veitnam even though they did not want to go. Some came back in body bags. The ones who came back alive did not escape the war unchanged. At any time, the war could have been stopped, but powerful men with big egos would not stop a war that we should never have fought. This book brings back the memories of that war and that time. 1968 was a dark time. It was an emotional experience to relive that year, but I am glad I did. I have a better understanding of those events at the age of sixty nine than I did at the age of nineteen. Lawrence O'Donnell has produced a masterful work and his narration is just what the book needed. There were times that I did not want to keep listening, but I could not stop, and that tells the story of 1968.

Riveting!

The writing is exciting and the reading of it is fabulous. It was hard to stop listening. I highly recommend this audiobook.

Enlightening

Having been born in 1966, and educa0ted in the 1980's, I always felt that my grasp of the events recounted in this book lacked clarity. Boy, was I right. I HIGHLY recommend this book!

Fascinating!

As a 35 year old I had only cursory knowledge of this period of modern American history. This book lays out extraordinary events that I had little knowledge of. It has provided me perspective on my parent's and grandparent's generations and I can see now reasons for some of their opinions. Great book!

Excellent story-telling

I like academic books and as a rule I dislike books written by journalists and pundits. Even more, I dislike books written by journalists and pundits who narrate their own books. This one was a HUGE exception. Even for non-Americans who hadn't been born in 1968, this book, with O'Donnell's really extraordinary narration brought everything to life: politicians as life-size people, the multi-dimensional chess of the national politics in the US, the step-by-step accumulation of circumstances, mistakes, machinations, ego, ideology, anger, isolation, marginalization, mass media manipulation, loopholes in campaign finance, blind-spots that allowed the assassinations of the 1960s.
I could have picked up most of the dry information in other books. This book is unique because of O'Donnell's writing style, so you can almost touch it, feel it, hear it, smell it.

relevant and thoroughly entertaining

interesting from start to finish, very listenable performance by the author, didn't want it to end.

inspiring informing dramatic riveting

amazing. reads like a novel. hard boiled fast paced. just amazing. one of the three best books ive heard on audible (out of four hundred) and definitely the best non fiction by a mile.

What a good book!

Lawrence O’Donnell knows how to tell a story. The similarities to our politics today are uncanny.

Overarching, revelatory, nuanced, and affecting.

Narration is brilliant.

O’Donnell tells the story of America’s political reality 1950’s — late 60’s. All the major stories, concerns, players, and dynamics are herein woven into a masterful overarching, piercing portrayal of post-WW2 America through the 60’s. This information serves as context for describing and analyzing the stupendously consequential, tumultuous 1968 Chicago Democratic Party convention.

The 1968 democratic convention is covered in fascinating detail. We learn about:
Johnson’s degrading treatment of Humphrey complemented by Humphrey’s self-denigrating compliance;
Bobby Kennedy’s initial reluctance to run supplanted by eager pursuit of the nomination;
Strained relationships among contenders—Kennedy with McCarthy, Johnson with Kennedy, Rockefeller with Agnew;
Rifts within both political parties—peace democrats vs. hawks, centrist republicans vs. hard liners,
Wallace vs. both liberal democrats and conventional conservatives;
Mayor Dailey’s iron fisted, ruthless bullying, which precipitated the Polite Riot;
The complex convention procedures complicating the nomination proceedings;
The effects of the King and Kennedy assassinations on nomination planning and execution;
How banal was the Republican convention as against the confusing democratic convention.

We also learn about the relationship between Bobby and Jack, their respective strengths and weaknesses, Bobby’s doggedness in supporting his brother, Bobby’s mercilessly prosecuting criminals and crooked union leaders as well as his having been an original Vietnam war enthusiast. We obtain a more sophisticated understanding of Bobby than what received history allows.

These and many other particulars are explained which renders a factually based, nuanced understanding of 1968 politics, politicians, the war, and world events.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.