They seem most appropriate as a new Republican administration comes into office — with a president-elect determined to make outreach and diversity a greater part of his vision than any Republican before him.
Eyewitness to Power
The history that Gergen witnessed being made and the lessons he learned are on full display here. What makes this book a fine read is that, surprisingly, it is not really that much about Gergen himself. This is not a memoir. He offers autobiographical glimpses when appropriate. But Gergen is more interested, as the title indicates, in talking about the presidents he served, their personalities, and the leadership style they brought to the job. Ronald Reagan, by Gergen's standard, was the closest to exemplifying the “complete leadership package.”
What comes out of this book is Gergen's conviction that perhaps the most important moment in an administration's existence is pre-inauguration. Gergen devotes remarkable amount of time to what each incoming president does or does not do during transition and how that preparation (or lack thereof) influences the chief executive's term. In this context, the reader can compare the Bush transition and what it might suggest for a potentially successful Bush administration.
Regardless, Gergen believes that any president who doesn't work hard out of the box and take advantage of his “honeymoon” period may be crippled for months afterward. His comparison of the early Reagan days with the equivalent Clinton period makes this case quite powerfully. Gergen's views on the failings of the Ford administration should also provide a cautionary tale to Bush, if and when, a Clinton pardon becomes a possibility.
Conservatives can find much to fault in Eyewitness to Power. While it could perhaps have been edited a little more tightly, it's a still a good work and provides insight into several of the most fascinating — and often misunderstood — political leaders of the last three decades.
The African-American Century
Another book which deserves a good look is The African-American Century, (subtitled “How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country”) an anthology edited by Henry Louis Gates and Cornel West, both professors at Harvard. Gates is clearly both politically and academically the more traditional of the two. West enjoys living the life of a “public intellectual,” which means that in addition to teaching, he revels in being a polemical “progressive” academic. Fortunately, that matters little in the context of this book. West is the more prolific of the two authors, this being his twenty-first and Gates' ninth (their second together).
The book sketches the lives of 100 black Americans in the worlds of politics, education, science, sports, entertainment, and the arts who defined (and in the most recent cases, continue to define) the last century. It begins, appropriately enough, with W.E.B. DuBois who, for good or ill, defined the problem facing pre-20th century America as “the color line.” In many ways, that turned out to be an accurate prediction. But what comes across repeatedly throughout this work is the tension existing within various black Americans as to how much they chose to have color define who and what they were. It's pretty clear that DuBois, as the first and foremost black public intellectual is a model for Gates and (especially) West.
“DuBois is unprecedented as an African-American political figure in that he wrote himself into a position of power.” The careers of both writers suggest that is a goal they would like to emulate. But DuBois' influence cannot be denied, even today. He was a prolific writer (The Souls of Black Folks first identified the concept of “double-consciousness” in black Americans), speaker and a founder of the NAACP. The tragedy of DuBois was that he ultimately surrendered to racism and the seduction of communism. In his final years, he left America and took Ghanaian citizenship.
A similar seduction helped destroy the brilliant career of the multi-talented actor, singer, and entertainer Paul Robeson. It's difficult not to think on occasion, that given the time, couldn't communism be considered a reasonable alternative to individuals who felt trapped in an unjust system. On the other hand, the fascinating mystery of the African-American experience is that few blacks gave into that temptation. It is that very fact which says so much about both the nation and the race.
A Controversial Author
David Gergen has had one of the more distinctive roles in American politics. He has served in a communications position for four different administrations — Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. That very ideological, shall we call it, “promiscuity,” is one reason why conservatives might not have given his latest book a serious look. Gergen was already in trouble with the Right in the late '80s when it seemed he would go out of his way to defer to liberal Mark Shields on the old MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. But those frustrations evolved into complete outrage when Gergen joined the Clinton administration in 1993. Well, Gergen had his reasons and some are revealed in Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership — Nixon to Clinton.
DuBois set himself consciously as an alternative to Booker T. Washington, the post-Reconstruction figure who felt that self-improvement and education were the better ways to “Negro” enfranchisement than focusing on rights. Most notable among Washington's many accomplishments was the founding of Tuskegee University. While DuBois' vision has come to dominate black politics, Washington's competing one has never been completely suppressed, influencing Clarence Thomas, members of the Nation of Islam and countless others.
At just under 400 pages, The African-American Century is an ideal window into the rich diversity of black life as it developed over the last hundred years. As America cannot truly move forward unless it completely understands how we got to where we are, this is an invaluable work. It's encouraging, for example, to see the direct line that can be drawn between Benjamin O. Davis, the first black to attain the rank of U.S. Army general, to General Colin Powell, the first to become secretary of state.
Considering its scope, The African American Century can only serve as an introduction to its subject, just scratching the surface. The black experience is far too rich and vast to be completely summarized in even this quality attempt. However, this is still an important introduction. Gates and West have put together a fairly honest snapshot of the black “MVPs” of the 20th century. Their stories, triumphs and tragedies, may serve to create a fuller understanding of the American nation and the challenges it must yet overcome.
Happy reading in 2001.
(This article courtesy of National Review Online).
