Jeffrey Hart (1930–2019)

5536. From This Moment On America in 1940, by Jeffrey Hart (read 26 Feb 2018) This book was published in 1987 and is a popular (rather than academic) history book dwelling on the events around 1940. The author was s speech writer for Nixon and Reagan and with the Natiional Review, but his conservative bias is downplayed in the book and he says good things about FDR and what he writes did not strike me as blatantly right wing. He in no systematic way discusses events of the 1930s and 1940s, often quoting at length from books published around the 1980s. Some of the discussions are on topics not too interesting. For instance, he has a long piece on tennis in the 1920s and up through 1940 which was of little interest, at least to me. But he tells of funny things as well--for instance, he quotes Wendell Willkie's wife who was trotted out when Willkie was nominated for president--Willkie had a mistress and his wife had long been ignored. Her sudden prominence caused her to remark: "Politics makes strange bedfellows." I had heard this before, but it is sadly funny,. And he tells the old gag of Jack Bernny's when confronted by a holdup man who says "your money or your life" and when the crook gets no answer he asks "Well?" and Benny says "I'm thinking, i'm thinking." Hart is about my age and he tells what he himself observed in that time, which sort of resonates with me. Not a serious work but usually pleasant reading and I pretty much enjoyed it.… (altro)