Thirty-Six Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis [Paperback]

Correspondents of The New York Times (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2001

From the most trusted newspaper in the country, here is the complete story of the Election 2000 standoff that stopped American politics.

Beginning on Election Day and ending with the Supreme Court decision that gave victory to George W. Bush, this important volume provides a day-by-day record of events as they unfolded. Drawing on the talents of many of the the top political reporters at The New York Times, 36 Days aims to make sense of a complex and convoluted chapter in our recent history.

Along with lead stories from each consecutive day, the book includes informative and enlightening background pieces, analytical essays, investigative reports, personality profiles, and opinion pieces, thus offering students and all other observations of this election a well-rounded, fair-minded, thoughtful account. These pieces are linked by original text that highlights key developments and shifting strategies. Also included are selected excerpts from all the relevant legal opinions, statistical graphics, quotations, and sidebar stories. An introduction by acclaimed presidential scholar Brinkley adds historical perspective to this authoritative and comprehensive chronicle.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The New York Times team behind this book includes R. W. Apple, Jr., David Barstow, Richard L. Berke, Rick Bragg, Frank Bruni, Dana Canedy, Adam Clymer, Ford Fessenden, Dexter Filkins, David Firestone, William Glaberson, David Gonzalez, Linda Greenhouse, Alison Mitchell, Michael Moss, Don van Natta, Jr., Mia Navarro, Richard Perez-Pena, Todd S. Purdum, Kevin Sack, Elaine Sciolino, Katherine Seelye, Somini Sengupta and many other.

Douglas Brinkley, the director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies, is a distinguished professor at the University of New Orleans. He is the author of numerous books, including The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times; and Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary History of the United States from the Revolution to Today, edited with Stephen Ambrose.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1 edition (February 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805068503
• ISBN-13: 978-0805068504
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,590,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Douglas Brinkley is currently a Professor of History at Rice University and a Fellow at the James Baker III Institute of Public Policy. He completed his bachelor's degree at Ohio State University and received his doctorate in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University in 1989. He then spent a year at the U.S. Naval Academy and Princeton University teaching history. While a professor at Hofstra University, Dr. Brinkley spearheaded the American Odyssey course, in which he took students on numerous cross-country treks where they visited historic sites and met seminal figures in politics and literature. Dr. Brinkley's 1994 book, The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey chronicled his first experience teaching this innovative on-the-road class which became the progenitor to C-SPAN's Yellow School Bus.

Five of Dr. Brinkley's books have been selected as New York Times "Notable Books of the Year": Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years(1992), Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal, with Townsend Hoopes (1992), The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (1998), Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company and a Century of Progress (2003), and The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006).

Five of his most recent publications have become New York Times best-sellers: The Reagan Diaries, (2007), The Great Deluge (2006), The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion (2005), Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (2004) and Voices of Valor: D-Day: June 6, 1944 with Ronald J. Drez (2004). The Great Deluge (2006), was the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy prize and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book award.

Before coming to Rice, Dr. Brinkley served as Professor of History and Director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. From 1994 until 2005 he was Stephen E. Ambrose Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. During his tenure there he wrote two books with the late Professor Ambrose: Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1997) and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002). On the literary front, Dr. Brinkley has edited Jack Kerouac's diaries, Hunter S. Thompson's letters and Theodore Dreiser's travelogue. His work on civil rights includes Rosa Parks (2000) and the forthcoming Portable Civil Rights Reader.

He won the Benjamin Franklin Award for The American Heritage History of the United States (1998) and the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Naval History Prize for Driven Patriot (1993). He was awarded the Business Week Book of the Year Award for Wheels for the World and was also named 2004 Humanist of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. He has received honorary doctorates from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Dr. Brinkley is contributing editor for Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times Book Review and American Heritage. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly, he is also a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Club. In a recent profile, the Chicago Tribune deemed him "America's new past master."

Forthcoming publications include The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the crusade for America and a biography of Walter Cronkite.

He lives in Austin and Houston, Texas with his wife and three children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Clipping Service?, May 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Thirty-Six Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis (Paperback)

The book is mainly a paste-up of Times articles published during the election. While this was of course first-class reporting, the book offers very little new analysis or other fresh material. If you read the Times regularly during the election crises, you have already read most of this book; others will be left reading six month-old newspaper articles.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting subject matter...biased reporting, March 18, 2005

By 

Marc Dalesandro (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thirty-Six Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis (Paperback)

Whether you will enjoy "36 Days" or not depends on

a) Your political affiliation (the book is very pro-Gore).

b) How much you enjoyed following the election controversy at the time (politcal junkies will like the comprehensive NY Times coverage).

Since the New York Times endorsed Gore for president, and most of its staff tilts leftward, the coverage of Bush and his campaign team is fairly negative. Still, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it as one more source for info regarding the historic 2000 election.

Besides, the liberal spin is less annoying because Bush wins in the end.

5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good., May 15, 2001

By 

Thanos6 (Chapin, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Thirty-Six Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis (Paperback)

"The New York Times," one of the best newspapers in the world, has released 36 DAYS, a compilation of their reports and opinion pieces printed during the course of the Election 2000 Aftermath. Be you Democratic, Republican, or an independent, this is news reporting at its finest. Buy it!