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Margaret O'Mara

Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections That Shaped the Twentieth Century Hardcover – August 31, 2015

by Margaret O'Mara (Author)

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Serious and silly, unifying and polarizing, presidential elections have become events that Americans love and hate. Today's elections cost billions of dollars and consume the nation's attention for months, filling television airwaves and online media with endless advertising and political punditry, often heated, vitriolic, and petty. Yet presidential elections also provoke and inspire mass engagement of ordinary citizens in the political system. No matter how frustrated or disinterested voters might be about politics and government, every four years, on the first Tuesday in November, the attention of the nation—and the world—focuses on the candidates, the contest, and the issues. The partisan election process has been a way for a messy, jumbled, raucous nation to come together as a slightly-more-perfect union.

Pivotal Tuesdays looks back at four pivotal presidential elections of the past 100 years to show how they shaped the twentieth century. During the rowdy, four-way race in 1912 between Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Eugene Debs, and Woodrow Wilson, the candidates grappled with the tremendous changes of industrial capitalism and how best to respond to them. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt's promises to give Americans a "New Deal" to combat the Great Depression helped him beat the beleaguered incumbent, Herbert Hoover. The dramatic and tragic campaign of 1968 that saw the election of Richard Nixon reflected an America divided by race, region, and war and set in motion political dynamics that persisted into the book's final story—the three-way race that led to Bill Clinton's 1992 victory.

Exploring the personalities, critical moments, and surprises of these races, Margaret O'Mara shows how and why candidates won or lost and examines the effects these campaigns had on the presidencies that followed. But this isn't just a book about politics. It is about the evolution of a nation and the history made by ordinary people who cast their ballots.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press
Publication date

August 31, 2015
Dimensions

6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0812247469
ISBN-13

978-0812247466
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Editorial Reviews

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A completely captivating read. Margaret O'Mara draws an irresistibly vivid portrait of modern politics, one that takes readers on a delightful tour of the recent past-and puts our own modern-day battles into terrific context. Just a delicious book, written by an authoritative historian and brilliant narrator. ― Anne Kornblut, Washington Post

Pivotal Tuesdays is a substantial achievement-a trenchant, balanced explication of the major shifts in twentieth-century presidential politics-and a ripping good read-clear, wry, beautifully written. ― Bruce Schulman, Boston University

Book Description

From the era of the industrial factory to the age of the microchip, Pivotal Tuesdays explores four twentieth-century elections—1912, 1932, 1968, and 1992—using the election of the American president as a lens through which to explore the broader sweep of the nation's social, economic, and political history.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Pennsylvania Press; First Edition (August 31, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0812247469
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0812247466
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,173,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,224 in Elections
- #2,320 in United States Executive Government
- #2,497 in United States National Government

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3.5 31 ratings

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Margaret O'Mara

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Margaret O’Mara is the Howard & Frances Keller Professor of History at the University of Washington. She writes and teaches about the history of U.S. politics, the growth of the high-tech economy, and the connections between the two, and is the author of Cities of Knowledge and Pivotal Tuesdays. She received her MA/PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA from Northwestern University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in the Clinton White House and served as a contributing researcher at the Brookings Institution. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband Jeff and their two daughters.

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Taylerzy

The presidential elections are put together like pieces to a puzzle that is our modern-day society.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 19, 2016

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I bought this book to casually read over the summer in preparation for a fall political science class (for a general education requirement). Personally, I've only just begun to take an interest in politics in the past few years, so learning about the history of our presidential elections sounded intriguing. Some of the content in this book has been covered year after year in about every history class I've been in, but it's far more interesting in this book, as the presidential elections are put together like pieces to a puzzle that is our modern-day society.

This book explains the history of our presidents and corresponding presidential elections, but what it's really about is how we've gotten where we are now, in politics and as a society. The book seems to start out slow, starting with a political era that I just couldn't relate to. As the book continued though, it became more interesting (at least to me) and more modern. The author does an excellent job of explaining how society had changed in the months preceding the elections, leading to a more progressive, moderate, or conservative outlook.

Four presidents are on the cover of this book, but the elections in between are covered quite thoroughly as well. It's honestly kind of shocking to realize how many times the majority has voted for a certain candidate only because the other option was so unfavorable. As I'm writing this review, the general 2016 election hasn't yet started, and Clinton and Trump are to be the two candidates. As I read this book, I couldn't help but make similarities between this election and others in history, even though this election year already seems so strange.

You've heard the pros, now here are the cons:
While I would recommend this book to others who are interested in learning more about our country's political history, I found myself needing to search for more information on the historical elections that were covered in this book. Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't remember who won every presidential election in history, but I doubt it. The author seems, on a couple of occasions, to glide right over who actually won these historical elections. I get that this is in favor of showcasing the profound impact that these elections have had on our society and modern politics, including those who eventually lost, but it seemed incomplete without this information. Some things that I was expecting to see mentioned in more detail in the book, such as the Gary Hart scandal in 1987, was covered in about one sentence before moving on. It's understandable that some of this would be cut out in favor of a more succinct story, but I found myself wanting to learn a bit more than was covered in this book.

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Kyle Vain

Poor book to learn about elections.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 4, 2023

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This book first does a poor job in selecting which elections to discuss. I agree that the election of 1912 should be chosen, but the author wastes time and space discussion Eugene Debs, who was a minor third-party candidate that had no effect on the outcome of the election. The portion of the book that discusses the 1912 election is only forty-four pages long, so squandering precious space on Debs makes little sense. If 1932 is chosen as a "pivotal Tuesday", then so should 1980. The author chooses 1992 instead of 1980 because they worked as a campaign staffer in Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. If they wanted to write a book about that experience, then they should have, but only discussed that election. I also believe that 1960 should have been chosen of 1968.

A bigger issue with the book is that the author states their opinions as if they are incontrovertible facts. At one point in the book that author says, "What is uncontestable is that the government actions set in motion by Roosevelt in 1933 did pull the United States out of the Great Depression". Even if one believes that New Deal cured the great depression, it certainly isn't "uncontestable". Most people today recognize the fact that the United States didn't come out of the depression until after they entered World War II. Even liberals agree that the New Deal didn't cure the depression, though many blame it on FDR not doing enough.

My recommendation would be to avoid this book. If you want to learn about elections, either buy a book that discusses them all, or choose books that only focus on one individual election.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 26, 2015

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Amazing book on all levels!!! This author is a star.

One person found this helpful

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John Myler

So interesting...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 18, 2016

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An intriguing political read!

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DonL2507

An Interesting Political History of Four 20th Century Elections

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 6, 2019

Many years ago we were asked in a (college finals) history exam who we would have voted for and why in the Presidential elections of 1896, 1912, and 1948. Obviously, there were no right or wrong answers; the validity of your answers depended on how well your selections meshed with your personal beliefs as well as your reasoning process. The author of "Pivotal Tuesdays" has selected the elections of 1912, 1932, 1968, and 1992 as pivotal elections which shaped the contours of our politics presumably more than other Presidential elections. One could argue over her selections but she's revealed, at least to me, some interesting "what if's" and consequences of these elections.

The four-way election of 1912 reflected the peak of American progressivism in the first two decades of the 20th century, and may have even rivaled the election of 1936 as the high tide of liberalism in our nation. Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson echoed many ideas that were then associated with socialism, and the real socialist Eugene Debs got almost a million votes that year. Even Taft, the conservative among the four, was a greater trust-buster than TR. The author suggests a couple of fascinating "what if's" that were quite plausibly linked to the potential outcome of the 1912 election: (1) What if TR had wrested the GOP nomination from the incumbent Taft and received the support of the party organization. His likely victory might have evolved the Republican party into the liberal party of the 20th century (and beyond) instead of the Democratic party. At that time, the GOP had many middle class progressives, and the Democratic party largely consisted of southern segregationists and northern urban political machines, (2) What if TR, who got the largest percentage vote of any 3rd party candidate, won in 1912 as a Progressive? Would his Progressive party eventually supplanted one of the two major parties in the future political landscape of the US similar to the Labor party replacing the Liberal party in the UK around the same time? For better or worse, we know that the Constitution does not make it easy for 3rd parties to be sustainable beyond a charismatic leader.

The 1932 election ended almost 70 years of largely Republican dominance of the Presidency and ushered in 36 years of Democratic dominance. The 1968 election indicated that a realigning of party factions was in process and that Republicans were likely to be the beneficiaries of this, a result that was confirmed in the election of 1980. Two shifts seemed to be at work: (1) southerners, including segregationists and "New South" business interests, were increasingly attracted to the Republican party; many because of the Civil Rights Acts of the 60s that were sponsored by Democratic administrations (but received crucial Republican support) and from which LBJ said would kill Democratic prospects in the south for a generation. The south is now "solid" for the Republican party, (2) The 1968 and 1980 elections showed a strong shift of working class voters to the Republican party (and to George Wallace in 1968 and 1972). These voters were fearful of crime, wary of urban unrest and campus protests, and therefore liked Nixon's "law and order message." This migration of the working class to the Republican party has seemed to continue and been confirmed in the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Folks whose parents were emphatic trade unionists are now strong Republicans, more for cultural than for economic reasons. For my money, it's another example of the dominance of Richard Hofstadter's "status" politics over "interest" politics.

Clinton's election in 1992 marked the end of a quarter-century of Republican Presidencies, interrupted only by the Watergate-Nixon pardon-affected election of 1976, and seemed to usher in a period of Democratic dominance, at least in the popular vote, where Democratic candidates have garnered the most popular votes in 6 of the last 7 elections.

This book is interesting, easy to read, and the author's knowledge of American political history is quite thorough. I'm wondering, however, why the author did not use the framework I learned in political science course many years ago of the concepts of "realigning elections" and "maintaining elections"? (References to these concepts are in her notes.) We learned that 1800 was a realigning election (the virtual end of the Federalist party and the ascendance of the Jeffersonian "Democrats"); that 1860 was another realigning election with the aforementioned 70-year ascendance of Lincoln's Republicans against the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion"; and that 1932 was the third realigning election with FDR's Democrats. "Maintaining elections" exhibited electoral results that supported the dominant party. Was 1968 a "realigning election"? or 1980? Realigning elections were meant to confirm a transfer of voting party from the previous dominant party to the ascendant party. Could you have a realignment of party voting blocs that didn't tip the balance of voting power in either party's favor, e.g., working class to Republicans, middle class to Democrats?

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