The President and the Assassin

Today, for those who study history, ‘empire' can seem something of a dirty word. Usually the good things that are associated with it (trade, commerce, and spreading a common language) go hand in hand with negative aspects (colonialism, slavery, and assimilation of a local populous at the expense of their heritage and culture). Many would think of the 1700's British Empire as a classic example. However, there was also a time where the United States had imperial aspirations of her own and justified it with language that would not look out of place in 1770's British parliament, let alone 1890's America. The book The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century by Scott Miller attempts to explore these notions of imperialism during the McKinley Presidency. Miller notes that for all of America's desire for international power, McKinley was largely a stooge of big business, use to make the captains of industry happy, and it was not until his assassination, and the rise of Theodore Roosevelt, that the capitalist dogs who controlled the government began to heel. Miller uses this book to explain why McKinley was shot and why his anarchist assassin thought to shoot him in the first place...and how that anarchist movement began in America...and the reasons for its popularity in the 1870's onward... and the development for imperial expansion, and...a great, great many more things.

This book joins a growing list of books that attempt to combine a Presidential biography with another person and a third social element of its time. With Candice Millard's 2016 book Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, she explored President James Garfield's assassination and his doctors who ended up being the actual cause of his death. Miller does something similar, as he looks at how a great many topics all came together to form a moment in time that America would not see for another 60 years. One the one hand, this can be a very good thing. As I stated in my Destiny of the Republic review, history does not occur in a vacuum and there are many times where you need to understand the social elements surrounding an assassin's motivations, which cannot be summed up in a few pages. Couple this with the readability of the text, and you have a book that many people can understand and get into with little outside resources.

Yet, on the other hand, this book proves that studying outside forces can be more of a hindrance than some help.

The following is a list of the ideas touched upon in Miller's book:
The rise of the anarchy movement and the people who helped lead it.
The rise of big business.
The working conditions of the poor.
The growing wealth gap between America's poorest and wealthiest citizens.
Rise of insurgents in Cuba.
US interests in Cuba.
The USS Maine and her sinking.
The investigation into the sinking of the USS Maine.
The various wars and conflicts in Asia.
China as a growing economic market.
The backstory and rise of President McKinley.
McKinley's relationship with his wife.
McKinley's attitude to war with Spain, Cuba, and in the Philippines.
Roosevelt and his Rough Rider's.
The Haymarket massacre.
The Haymarket Trial in 1886.
Emma Goldman (women's rights activist).
The Homestead Penn. Workers strike.

(It was at this point that I gave up listing topics.)

Over 20 topics is a lot to cover in a book with just over 350 pages of text. Also, if you looked at this list and wondered why I was foolish enough to list these events out of order, don't; the book does something similar. It takes many different topics and splits them up by each chapter. The thing is that these events separate themselves by a good 30 years, and Miller does not move chronologically, instead jumping from topic to topic with little regard for the reader's attention. This means that a less astute reader can become very confused as to what happened when and how each event folds into one another.

What does all this mean in the grand scheme of things? It means that the old adage of being as wide as an ocean, yet as deep as a puddle applies here. The reader may find a great many topics touched upon, but none of them are handled in a satisfying way, especially considering they are presented out of chronological order. This leads me to give this book a three out of five. You may want to pick this book up but do it at the library or from a friend as one may find its depth wanting.