Greg Mitchell, former of E&P, has a new edition of his book out. I wanted to help him get the word out as it sounds interesting.
After several years out of print, my award-winning 1992 book from Random House, The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics, has just appeared in a "classic" new edition from PoliPoint Press. You can order the print version now from the publisher, or at Amazon, with various e-editions arriving next week. Campaign won the Goldsmith Book Prize, was one of five finalists for a Los Angeles Times Book Award, and served as the basis for an episode in the PBS The Great Depression series. It's even being made into a musical.
The modern political campaign--dominated by advertising tricks, "spin doctors," and attack ads on the screen--was invented in this 1934 campaign. It was one of the dirtiest campaigns ever and also marked Hollywood's first all-out plunge into politics, inspired by socialist author Sinclair sweeping the Democratic primary. Sinclair's End Poverty in California (EPIC) crusade was one of the greatest mass movements in U.S. history, and the links to today's economic crisis, media trickery and political climate, are profound. The cast of characters in this wild and often wacky tale reads like a "Who's Who," from FDR and Hearst to Will Rogers and Katharine Hepburn. Chairman of the GOP campaign? Earl Warren. And so on.
