These are rich times for writers of Hendrik Hertzberg's political persuasion. The stalwart political commentator has plenty of qualified company on the left when it comes to critiquing the conservative revolution, notably Lewis Lapham, William Greider, and Paul Krugman. But the former New Republic editor and current New Yorker executive editor has a voice that is particularly suitable for an on-the-outs observer. Hertzberg seems almost delighted to pinpoint hypocrisy, inconsistency, greed, and masked cynicism. At his best, he makes indignation fun. Politics gathers dozens of Hertzberg's editorials and essays in one hefty volume, organizing them in loose subdivisions ("The Wayward Media," "Wedge Issues," "2000 + 9/11"). The former Jimmy Carter speechwriter isn't above lancing those on the left who fail to match their ideals with their actions, but, naturally, he's at his best when scrutinizing those on the right. The Reagan and Bush II administrations proved to be particularly inspirational. Keen, pithy, and daring (if not always right; in 1988, he ruefully forecasted a Dan Quayle administration), Hertzberg ranks with the finest political writers of his era. The proof is in this wide-ranging and smartly edited compilation. --Steven Stolder
From Publishers Weekly
Hertzberg's name is instantly recognizable to readers of the New Yorker, where he often writes the lead commentary on the week's political fallout. Drawing on nearly 40 years' worth of material, this collection sums up a career that has included stints editing the New Republic and speechwriting for Jimmy Carter, and offers some surprises: a baby boomer's reminiscences on the 20th anniversary of Woodstock are expected, as are repeated forays into electoral reform, but a 1972 John Lennon profile and a probe of the origins of the classic New York tabloid headline, FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD find the politics in pop culture. A long stretch of material deals with his coverage of the 1988 election, including a reflection on the possibility of Dan Quayle becoming president that leads into a discussion of disengaged leadership. And there's plenty of direct criticism of George W. Bush and his handling of the war on terror, in the context of Hertzberg's longstanding dissatisfaction with neoconservatives and self-appointed protectors of "Judeo-Christian" values. Taken as a whole, the articles show a consistent concern for a classical liberalism in which sober reasoning rests on equal footing with sly humor, but even articles from 2000 feel distant given the pace of current events. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Political essayist Hertzberg, who currently graces the pages of the New Yorker with his shrewd, balanced, and personable analysis, came to his calling naturally as the son of a Jewish activist-journalist and a Protestant history professor, as New Yorker editor David Remnick attests in his zestful introduction to this unprecedented and far-ranging collection. At nine Hertzberg was handing out Adlai Stevenson buttons; at Harvard he honed his love of exposition, expertise that carried him to Newsweek, the New Republic, and the White House as Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter. Hertzberg's Carter years inspired some of his most piquant interpretations of the morality of politics, while his responses to the Vietnam War, the legacies of John and Robert Kennedy, and the "weirdness" of the Reagan White House and Dan Quayle (remember him?) all remain fresh, relevant, and unnerving, and his insights into the two George Bushes are blazingly brilliant. Hertzberg raises many crucial issues throughout this exhilarating volume, but none is more resounding than his forthright and commonsensical emphasis on the need for uncompromising humanism and secularism in democratic governments. Hertzberg could have lifted the perfect subtitle from the Grateful Dead, who appear in the book's first essay: "What a long, strange trip it's been." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Kirkus Reviews, starred review, July 13, 2004
Superb writing, subtle thinking. Just the thing for politics junkies and journalism buffs...
Library Journal, July 2004
Whether liberal or conservative, readers will find him challenging and provocative.
Los Angeles Times, August 1, 2004
...for those of us who are always looking for a clear voice, an engaged, spirited, sometimes irate, yet lucid voice...
Politics: Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004 FROM THE PUBLISHER
Here at Last are Hendrik Hertzberg's most significant, hilarious, and devastating dispatches from the American scene he has chronicled for four decades with an uncanny blend of moral seriousness, high spirits, and perfect rhetorical pitch. Politics is at once the story of American life from LBJ to GWB and a testament to the power of the written word in the right hands. In those hands, politics encompasses everyone from Jerry Garcia to Rush Limbaugh, every place from New Hampshire to Nicaragua, and everything from Playboy v. Penthouse to Bush v. Gore. Hendrik Hertzberg breaks down American politics into its component parts -- campaigns, debates, rhetoric, the media, wars (cultural, countercultural, and real), high crimes and misdemeanors, the right, and more. Each section begins with a new piece of writing framing the subject at hand and contains the choicest, most illuminating pieces from his body of work. Politics is a tour of the defining moments of American life from the mid-'60s till the mid-'00s, a ride through recent American history with one of the most insightful and engaging guides imaginable, a writer who consistently makes us see more clearly and feel more deeply.
SYNOPSIS
Hertzberg collects 121 of his published essays on the American political scene, nearly half drawn from his "Comment" pieces for the New Yorker. Styling himself a social democrat of the European variety, as well as a liberal Democrat of the American breed, he comments on a broad range of political events, figures, and processes, including the "Child Monarch" (Ronald Reagan), the controversy over the "under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, presidential elections and campaigns, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the bigotry at Bob Jones University, the Senate Watergate hearings, capital punishment, and the "War on Drugs." Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
David Greenberg - The Washington Post
Long after we've forgotten Pat Robertson's presidential bid or John Tower's confirmation battle, these essays will bear rereading (and not just because Hertzberg's warnings about the violation of Tower's privacy, along with Gary Hart's, in 1987, presaged the frenzy of prurience that befell Washington in 1998). They're keepers because they don't just plead the case for contemporary liberalism but -- with their wit, humanity and exquisite understatement -- illustrate it.
Publishers Weekly
Hertzberg's name is instantly recognizable to readers of the New Yorker, where he often writes the lead commentary on the week's political fallout. Drawing on nearly 40 years' worth of material, this collection sums up a career that has included stints editing the New Republic and speechwriting for Jimmy Carter, and offers some surprises: a baby boomer's reminiscences on the 20th anniversary of Woodstock are expected, as are repeated forays into electoral reform, but a 1972 John Lennon profile and a probe of the origins of the classic New York tabloid headline, FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD find the politics in pop culture. A long stretch of material deals with his coverage of the 1988 election, including a reflection on the possibility of Dan Quayle becoming president that leads into a discussion of disengaged leadership. And there's plenty of direct criticism of George W. Bush and his handling of the war on terror, in the context of Hertzberg's longstanding dissatisfaction with neoconservatives and self-appointed protectors of "Judeo-Christian" values. Taken as a whole, the articles show a consistent concern for a classical liberalism in which sober reasoning rests on equal footing with sly humor, but even articles from 2000 feel distant given the pace of current events. Agent, The Wylie Agency. (July 13) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
The more than 100 articles collected here are fairly representative of Hertzberg's work over the last 40 years. A writer for The New Yorker, Newsweek, and The New Republic (where he was twice editor), Hertzberg also served as head speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter. But it is his voice as a liberal social and political critic that makes this book important. The articles are organized chronologically within sections. For example, "Wedge Issues" covers various controversial campaign issues, beginning with an article on pornography in 1986 and ending with one on the Lawrence v. Texas High Court decision of 2003. Each section opens with a new essay by the author; New Yorker editor David Remnick provides an introduction. As an essayist, Hertzberg may be many things-irreverent, arrogant, funny, very liberal, and at times hypercritical-but he is never boring. Whether liberal or conservative, readers will find him challenging and provocative. Recommended for all libraries.-Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
One of American journalism's brightest intellectual lights shines forth in a fine-and long overdue-selection from four decades of work. Borrowing his title from that of Dwight Macdonald's left-leaning, mid-20th-century magazine, Hertzberg-who, as David Remnick notes in his foreword, is now "the political voice of The New Yorker"-offers a nicely catholic definition of what politics encompasses and who makes politics tick. In that vein, he opens this overstuffed anthology with a piece describing the San Francisco sound for Newsweek readers not yet hip to the scene, instructing them that the audiences for the likes of the politically astute Grateful Dead include people just like them, "like the crew-cut blond boy in chinos and poplin jacket, whose brunette date wears a plaid skirt and knee socks." Newsweek didn't run the essay, in which Jerry Garcia makes pronouncements worthy of Talleyrand ("Language is almost designed to be misunderstood"), but no matter: Hertzberg follows it with a generous sampling from the '60s era, including pieces that hit on Woodstock, the Weather Underground, and the invasion of Cambodia, before moving on to his stride-hitting analyses of mainstream political culture. Organized thematically, these pieces visit and revisit actors and motifs. All are marked by Hertzberg's touching insistence that humans are rational creatures and that our politics ought to reflect as much. Thus the fuss over Gary Hart's dalliance with Donna Rice, way back in the pre-Monica days, is hurtful because it "diverts our attention from public questions; it makes us respond inappropriately and disproportionately"; thus the war on drugs emerges as a "costly jihad"-just the right word-that "hasscared off some casual users, but it has done nothing to reduce the number of hard-core addicts"; thus the sitting president's way of catching lucky breaks makes for an especially maddening spectacle: "The fact that the 9/11 terrorists gave Bush what he could not earn on his own, a political majority, deepens the bitterness. "Superb writing, subtle thinking. Just the thing for politics junkies and journalism buffs, especially those wondering who merits wearing Izzy Stone's mantle today.
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