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text 2021-06-13 08:24

FREE E-BOOK- The BIG PICTURE

Rod Raglin

FREE E-BOOK

The BIG PICTURE

A Young Woman, a Camera, an Uncompromising Ethic

June 13-17

Download your copy now at

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU

Young, talented, ambitious, Freyja Brynjarrson’s a photographer struggling to crash the art establishment, the challenges presented by her family, and keep true to her uncompromising ethic.

Fate places her on the front line of a political demonstration where soldiers open fire on civilians. She photographs death for the first time and the intensity makes everything she’s done previously in art and life seem inconsequential.

The current government is concerned these highly charged images could sway the voters against them. With a closely contested election only three days away, they’re doing whatever they can to attempt to suppress their publication. But someone far more unscrupulous than government spin-doctors also wants these images destroyed.

Gunnar Brynjarrson, Freyja’s eldest brother is the head of an illegal narcotics empire. He’s concerned about the opposition party’s platform to decriminalize drugs. His sister’s photographs could influence the outcome of a close election and put his business in jeopardy.

As events unfold, Freyja slowly becomes aware of the far-reaching impact the billions of narco dollars have on the government, the economy, friends, family and even herself. Something insidious has infected society and like a superbug, it’s resilient, opportunistic and appears as a mutation in the most unexpected places.

Freyja refuses to compromise and is intolerant and unforgiving of those who succumb to this evil or are complicit in their acceptance of it. If she stays at home, she’s afraid she’ll be infected and never attain success on her own terms. She takes an assignment with an international agency photographing the chaos and casualties of Mexico’s drug war. Freyja soon discovers she’s shot only one frame of ‘the big picture’.

The Big Picture focuses on dramatic action, zooms in on political intrigue, and takes a candid snapshot of modern romance. The plot also reveals how narco dollars, overtly and covertly, influence every level of our lives; the wars we fight, the governments we elect, the impact on healthcare, and most importantly and tragically, our personal relationships.

"The plot of The Big Picture, with its twists and reversals of fortune, ...is imaginative and fast moving...extremely compelling. ....characters are diverse, well developed, and real... ...imagery is powerful and fresh. The book is an excellent read and pausing to experience some of the imagery makes it even better."

"The Big Picture is ...a thought-provoking novel that is smartly written with genuine emotional, no holds barred dialogue, and events that will punch you in the heart. - This book was a gem to read and an interesting one at that."

"...a journey of self discovery... a coming-of-age, social thriller... focused on key ethical questions... a creative solution to expose the links of social problems."
Tom Pope - for Bookpleasures

"I like the plot and the plotters...Arni's sense of humor and the dynamics in the Brynjarsson family...Gunnar the druglord, BB the addict, Arni the hedonist, Giordana who rationalizes and Freyja who wants to fight. I like the love story, too. Freyja and Marty with their differences and similarities make a good couple.
... (there are) moral issues in The Big Picture. The drugs, corruption, the way people with beliefs and principles slowly drop them in the treadmill of politics and re-elections. What drug money does to each of the Brynjarssons. Freyja's ethics against Gunnar's power."
- C. Widmann, Goodreads Review

Imaginative and fast moving...extremely compelling...will punch you in the heart.
5 STARS - Readers' Favorite Book Reviews

This is a fascinating novel...adventure, excitement, drug cartels, family issues, romance...themes that are important and questions we sometimes need to ask ourselves.

Judge's commentary - 2nd Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published eBook Awards

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review 2019-10-09 13:27

A good overview of one of the most critical elections in American history

markk

The Deadlocked Election of 1800: Jefferson, Burr, and the Union in the Balance - James Roger Sharp

American politics today is frequently criticized for its divisiveness, its nastiness, and the way it polarizes the population. Yet this is hardly a new development, as many of those elements were on display in the early years of the republic as well. Back then the men who are canonized in the popular imagination today as the "Founding Fathers" engaged in political warfare even more vicious and bitter than what Americans decry today. Nothing demonstrates this better than the presidential election of 1800, which James Roger Sharp argues was one of the two most important elections in American history ⁠— and was fought as one by all of the people involved in it.

Sharp situates his account of the election in the politics of the 1790s. This was the beginning of the "first party system," when the Federalist and the first Republican parties emerged to promote their respective visions of the new nation. While the Federalists dominated during this period, Sharp notes that what really distinguished this period from any other in American political history was that the concept of legitimate contested opposition had yet to establish itself. This added to the divisiveness of politics of the time, as many Federalists did not hesitate to use the instruments of government to prosecute their Republican opponents as enemies of the state. Making this argument was easier given the international political situation of the time, as the ongoing conflict between Great Britain and France in the 1790s fueled the political polarization and cast the shadow of war over the country. In these circumstances it was easy for the Federalists to pass laws that could be used to attack Republican newspaper publishers and even threaten Republican members of Congress.

Further complicating the situation was infighting within the Federalist Party itself. Though John Adams was the president, many Federalists looked to Alexander Hamilton as their party's true leader. Dissatisfied with the prospect of an Adams presidency, Hamilton even attempted to engineer the election of his vice presidential nominee, Thomas Pinckney, as the president in 1796, a gambit that ended with Adams's opponent Thomas Jefferson winning the vice presidency. The election of 1800 was a rematch between the two candidates, and was fought out over the course of 1800. Sharp details the events in the various states that determined the election, which was not a contest between the two men for the popular vote but a more indirect battle within the states over choosing the electoral college delegation. This Jefferson's supporters won, only for some desperate Federalists to try to engineer the election of his running mate Aaron Burr ⁠— who through a quirk was in the balloting as well and possessed the same number of votes ⁠— instead. It was only through Hamilton's strenuous efforts, coupled with a declaration by a Federalist senator that Jefferson would preserve the Federalist system of government, that Jefferson emerged the winner, effecting the first successful exchange of power between presidents of different parties.

As a scholar of early American political history, Sharp brings to the book an extensive knowledge of the period and the scholarship on his subject. This he employs to craft a study that clarifies the very different politics of the era, which helps to explain both the election and its outcome. Because of this, it is a good book for anyone seeking a guide to a very different type of presidential contest than the ones they are familiar with today, one in which politics was more personal and opposition often fought simply to establish its legitimacy.

American History John Adams Thomas Jefferson american presidential elections

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review 2019-02-24 22:57

Reconsidering one's conclusions about an iconic election

markk

I Like Ike: The Presidential Election of 1952 - John Robert Greene

The presidential election of 1952 is one that left a number of enduring impressions upon the American imagination. But while Americans today may remember it for Adlai Stevenson's high-toned campaign or Richard Nixon's famous "Checkers speech," one image stands out above all others: that of the genial, grinning face of Dwight D. Eisenhower. As the Republican nominee Eisenhower ended two decades of Democratic domination of the executive branch and began an eight-year presidency that has become indelibly associated with America in the 1950s.

While there are no shortage of books about Eisenhower or his years as president, nearly seven decades after his election there are only two histories about it. Indeed, John Robert Greene can rightfully be said to dominate the field, since he wrote both of them. As he explains in the introduction to his volume for the University Press of Kansas's American Presidential Elections series, however, this is no mere rehashing of his first book The Crusade, but a thorough revision of his original arguments about Eisenhower's interest in becoming president based on a reexamination of the sources. It is not often that a scholar renounces his or her previous work and even rarer that they do so in a new monograph. That Greene does so warrants a greater degree of respect for the argument he makes here.

Greene begins the book by situating the campaign in the context of the politics of the early 1950s. With the nation mired in a stalemate in Korea and with headlines trumpeting Truman administration scandals and charges of Communist infiltration, there was a widespread sense that the nation was heading in the wrong direction. Republicans hoped to capitalize upon this in the upcoming election, with many viewing Robert Taft as the best standard-bearer. Yet while the Ohio senator was seen as the leading spokesman of the conservative wing of the party, his isolationist views concerned many in the moderate, internationalist branch of the party, who sought someone more representative of their views.

For them that candidate was Eisenhower. While Greene's previous study of the election saw Eisenhower as an active pursuant of the nomination from the start, here he stresses Eisenhower's reluctance to enter electoral politics. One of the strongest parts of Greene's book is his careful reconstruction of the efforts by Eisenhower's supporters to convince their hero to run, which he only agreed to do out of fear of Taft's desire to withdraw the United States from the recently created North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Eisenhower's nomination was far from a sure thing, however, as Greene stresses the dominant position enjoyed by Taft's supporters in the party hierarchy and the role the events in the convention played in winning it for the general.

As Greene demonstrates, though, the Republicans were not the only ones with a reluctant nominee. Having withdrawn from the race after his defeat in the New Hampshire primary, Harry Truman encouraged Adlai Stevenson to enter the race, viewing the Illinois governor as the man best positioned to carry on the president's Fair Deal agenda. Yet Stevenson hesitated to run, and did not emerge as the Democratic nominee until the party's convention. Though Stevenson went on to run a dignified campaign notable for his learned and polished speeches, Greene argues that in the end no Democrat could have triumphed that year against the twin factors of national dissatisfaction with the Truman administration and Eisenhower's enormous popularity with the American people, with the events of the campaign itself largely anticlimactic in terms of deciding its outcome.

Thanks to his willingness to revisit his earlier conclusions, Greene provides his readers with something far more than just an updating of his previous work on the 1952 election but a through and open-minded examination of the contest. In doing so, he benefits not only from the greater availability of archival materials but also the related scholarship that has emerged as a result. While there are a few surprising absences from his list of secondary sources employed, overall the book is a thorough work of scholarship that will likely be the standard by which future works on the subject are judged.

American History american presidential elections

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review 2019-01-17 16:02

A revisionist account of a pivotal election

markk

The Election of 1860: "A Campaign Fraught with Consequences" - Michael F. Holt

The presidential election of 1860 was unlike any other in American history. The product of the contentious and often violent politics of the 1850s, it saw no less than four candidates contesting for the White House. With the fracturing of the Democratic Party over the issue of slavery, the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was able to win with a only a plurality of the vote, thanks to the majority he won in the electoral college through his near sweep of the populous states of the northern United States. In response to his victory, seven southern states sought to break away from the Union, an action that led to the bloodiest war in the nation's history and the eventual abolition of slavery in the country.

Given its dramatic nature and the momentous events that followed, the 1860 campaign has never wanted for attention from historians. Yet Michael F. Holt argues that a number of misconceptions have accumulated around the election which have skewed our perception of it. His book offers a revisionist account of the campaign that highlights these obscured or distorted elements in an effort to gain a better understanding of the issues that defined it for the voters who participated. Foremost among them, he argues, is the idea that the election was primarily about slavery, which he sees as the view of the southerners who would subsequently seek to break away from the union. For most voters, though, the main issue was the corruption of the Buchanan administration. Holt shows how Republicans highlighted this in the months leading up to the election, making the case that what was needed was a clean sweep of the executive branch. As he explains this also played a key role in the selection of "Honest Abe" as the nominee, as Lincoln's profile was one better suited to make the case for the Republicans than that of his main competitors, William Seward and the corrupt Simon Cameron.

While the Republicans sharpened their arguments about Democratic corruption in advance of the election, the Democratic Party was plagued with infighting between the president, James Buchanan, and Stephen Douglas. Holt traces the origins of this to Douglas's refusal to admit Kansas as a state under the proslavery Lecompton constitution. As Holt points out, this coupled with Douglas's qualified acceptance of the Dred Scott decision also alienated him from the southern Democrats who increasingly dominated the party, setting the stage for the party convention in Charleston in 1860 at which the Democrats fractured into pro- and anti-Douglas factions. With a victory by the (at that point undecided) Republican candidate increasingly likely, a group of politicians organized a conservative alternative to Republicans in the form of the Constitutional Union Party, who selected the elder statesman John Bell as their presidential contender. With the nomination of Douglas and Vice President John Breckinridge by the separate Democratic factions, the stage was set for a chaotic contest.

In covering the campaign that followed, Holt pushes back against the traditionally narrow view of it as separate contests between Lincoln and Douglas in the north and Breckinridge versus Bell in the south. Though Breckinridge, and Bell both refrained from electioneering, their campaigns sent speakers and mounted rallies in the northern states as well as the southern ones, while Republicans distributed ballots in the border slave states as well. Most dramatically Douglas undertook the then-unusual step of personally campaigning by making speeches in both the northern and southern states. Holt's chapter on the campaign itself is the best in the book, as he describes the myriad activities the parties adopted to turn out the vote. In this respect the Republican effort proved the most successful, as the dramatic appeals to young voters with the "Wide Awake" clubs and criticisms of Democratic corruption delivering them the victories they needed in the key swing states. As Holt points out, slavery was a salient issue only in the south, where arguments that Republicans were seeking outright abolition were so disconnected from Republican campaign goals that Republicans failed to take seriously the threats of secession by many southerners —a delusion that would quickly be dispelled in the weeks following Lincoln's victory.

As a longtime scholar of antebellum politics, Holt brings a lifetime's worth of learning to his subject. Yet he wears this lightly, providing an accessible description of the election while making arguments that go far towards shaking up the traditional interpretation of the 1860 election. Yet Holt oversells the revisionist nature of his account. Though he performs a valuable service in highlighting aspects of the campaign that were obscured by subsequent events, as Holt himself acknowledges at the end, perceptions of Democratic corruption and "misrule" in the north were as much tied to the perception of the party's excessive deference to southerners' anxieties about slavery as it was the buying of votes or the favoring of Democrats in awarding contracts. Moreover, his account of the election itself only qualifies somewhat the view of it as separate contests, suggesting the misconception is more one of emphasis than detail. Yet in the end these are criticisms of degree rather than of substance. Overall, Holt's reexamination of the 1860 election offers a refreshing reexamination of one of the truly pivotal moments in American history, and is necessary reading for anyone seeking to understand the election and how it led to the devastating conflict that followed.

Civil War American History Abraham Lincoln american presidential elections

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review 2018-12-22 16:19

Building a progressive majority

markk

The Revolution of ’28: Al Smith, American Progressivism, and the Coming of the New Deal - Robert Chiles

Al Smith is best remembered today as the first Catholic to win the nomination of a major political party. In doing so his campaign overcame considerable opposition from within his own prejudice-bound Democratic Party, and though he fell well short of winning the White House in 1928 he is credited with winning for them the support of the millions of ethnic voters who would go on to become an important part of the "New Deal coalition" that made the Democrats the dominant political party in America for a generation. While his appeal traditionally has been credited to their identification with his ethnic and religious background, in this book Robert Chiles makes the case that this obscures the real source of his appeal, which was the unabashedly progressive agenda he advocated in that race, one rooted in the policies he pursued throughout his career in New York politics.

As Chiles explains, Smith was drawn to progressivism through his interactions with settlement house activists in New York City in the 1910s. Though them he gained a greater awareness of the issues facing immigrants and urban workers, which he sought to address through government policy. As a state legislator and governor he pursued reforms on issues ranging from conservation to government efficiency, all of which were central to his platform as the Democratic presidential candidate. This won him the support of many ethnic voters, whose political identification at this time was in a state of flux. Drawn to the candidate of a party who addressed their concerns, they maintained their allegiance for his successor, Franklin Roosevelt, who drew upon much of Smith's progressive legacy when formulating the policies of his own administration during his time as president.

By highlighting Smith's progressivism, Chiles contributes both to our understanding of this important politician and his long-term impact upon American politics. In the process he also helps to explain the under-appreciated origins of a political shift that shaped the nation in which Americans live today. Together it makes for a book that no student of the era or of American political history more generally can afford to ignore.

American History american presidential elections