The New York Times Book Review - Jeff Shesol
Viewers of O'Donnell's [political talk] show will recognize, in Playing With Fire, his faith in the redemptive power of public service—for all its disappointments and foolishness. As a former Senate staffer, O'Donnell takes a practitioner's delight in the machinations of politics: He finds, and manages to convey, excitement in things like the movement of delegates from one camp to another. As a former producer and writer of the television drama The West Wing, he also knows how to pace a story, and could not have dreamed up a more compelling cast of characters.
Publishers Weekly
10/02/2017
O’Donnell, the host of MSNBC’s The Last Word, turns to print with an in-depth examination of the tumultuous 1968 election year. Supporting his work with credible sources, O’Donnell argues that 1968 forever changed the direction of American politics. The year was marked by President Lyndon Johnson’s extraordinary decision to decline a second term, the divisive and violent 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and bitter nomination fights at both parties’ nominating conventions, all put into high relief by the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. O’Donnell also posits that Nixon’s defeat of the more liberal Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican nomination sounded the death knell of that party’s liberal wing. Offering a unique thesis on what drove the year’s events, O’Donnell advances the idea that Eugene McCarthy’s decision to run against Johnson led to Johnson’s decision not to run, which spurred R.F.K. into the race and earned Hubert Humphrey the Democratic nomination. O’Donnell further speculates that, had McCarthy not run and Johnson stood for a second term, regardless of who won the 1968 election, R.F.K. would have been elected president in 1972. Instead there was Nixon and Watergate. O’Donnell untangles the many forces that made 1968’s election a watershed event. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
"In this delightful combination of vivid storytelling and sharp political insight, Lawrence O'Donnell brings to life the most fascinating election of modern times. His book is filled with memorable anecdotes and colorful characters, from Roger Ailes and Richard Nixon to Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. But beneath the rollicking tale is a truly profound historical truth: how the Sixties still reverberates in our nation's soul." —Walter Isaacson
"But O'Donnell, a former aide to Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, understands politics and its impact. He writes with an assurance and steady sense of pace that makes much of this seem new." —Ray Locker, USA Today
“I love the way Lawrence thinks, I love the way he writes. Playing with Fire is him at his best — this is a thriller-like, propulsive tour through 1968, told by a man who is in love with American politics and who knows how all the dots connect. Brilliant and totally engrossing.” ―Rachel Maddow
“From the anguish of the Vietnam War to the dazzling minds and feverish ambitions of the 1968 presidential election, Playing with Fire not only tells the story of one extraordinary year in American politics, it brings back to vivid, riveting life the men and women who changed the course of history.” ―Candice Millard, Author of Hero of the Empire
“A breathtaking, "buckle your seatbelt" ride through what might be the most dramatic and brutally consequential presidential election in modern U.S. history. Lawrence O'Donnell leaves no detail and no key historical player unexamined as he maps out the often treachero's route to America becoming its modern political self. Playing with Fire is a brilliant and necessary read for everyone who cares about politics, and loves history.” ―Joy-Ann Reid
“If ever there was a bygone presidential campaign crying out for the Game Change treatment, it’s the one that convulsed America in 1968—and Lawrence O’Donnell delivers the goods in Playing With Fire. Wars at home and abroad, secret plots and assassinations, riots in the streets and punches thrown on the convention floor, poets and protestors, movie stars and Kennedys, hippies, Yippies, and Black Panthers: 1968 had it all and then some. And now it has a chronicler in O’Donnell who brings coherence to the chaos, rendering the story with the crackle and flow of a dynamite Hollywood screenplay.” ―John Heilemann
“An excellent account of the 1968 presidential race, a political season of spoilers, outsiders, and broken machines eerily like our own time . . . [A] sharp, nuanced account . . . A careful, circumstantial study that compares favorably to Theodore H. White's presidents series and that politics junkies will find irresistible.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"Asmoothly written history of the 1968 campaign..., he tells the story exceedingly well. Appropriately, there is nothing dull about this book, just as there was nothing dull about this specific election or period in American history...O’Donnell writes accessibly for all readers, creating a beneficial work for anyone interested in modern political history." — Library Journal
"O’Donnell capably sets the historical context...O’Donnell’s breezy style, an outgrowth of his broadcasting persona, makes the chaos decipherable...Satisfying popular history." — Booklist
"[An]...in-depth examination...a unique thesis on what drove the year’s events...a unique thesis on what drove the year’s events." — Publishers Weekly
Library Journal
10/15/2017
Nearly a half century has passed since the 1968 election that put Richard Nixon in the White House, setting in motion waves of political forces that have yet to ebb. Here, O'Donnell, host of MSNBC'S The Last Word and former producer/writer for The West Wing, crafts a smoothly written history of the 1968 campaign, beginning with congressman Eugene McCarthy's shocking decision to challenge Lyndon B. Johnson for the nomination. O'Donnell provides background information on people such as presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy, businessman and politician Nelson Rockefeller, former vice president Hubert Humphrey, and Alabama governor George Wallace, among many others. The author also provides insight on debates between intellectuals Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr., which shaped convention coverage in 1968. While O'Donnell covers familiar territory, he tells the story exceedingly well. Appropriately, there is nothing dull about this book, just as there was nothing dull about this specific election or period in American history. VERDICT Recent studies such as Michael Nelson's Resilient America or Michael A. Cohen's American Maelstrom offer more research, but O'Donnell writes accessibly for all readers, creating a beneficial work for anyone interested in modern political history.—Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2017-07-17
An excellent account of the 1968 presidential race, a political season of spoilers, outsiders, and broken machines eerily like our own time.It makes for a fascinating thought experiment to imagine what might have become of America and the world had Robert F. Kennedy been elected president in 1968. He was, after all, the only Democrat who could "beat President Johnson, and then beat any Republican"—good reason, as MSNBC political commentator O'Donnell (Deadly Force: The True Story of How a Badge Can Become a License to Kill, 1983) recounts in this sharp, nuanced account of the election cycle, for Democratic leaders to press an initially reluctant Kennedy to run. When they did, they effectively betrayed party stalwart Eugene McCarthy, whose "legions of antiwar student supporters were sounding angry at the possibility of Bobby trying to steal Gene's thunder" and who distinguished himself as an "antiwar candidate credibly challenging a war-making president." But Kennedy was assassinated, the Democratic Party splintered into liberal and conservative wings, and Richard Nixon maneuvered his way to the Republican candidacy past a green but definitely interested Ronald Reagan, who had "won the governorship [of California] by beating the man who beat Richard Nixon for the governorship." Nixon was helped along by an emerging TV executive named Roger Ailes, who would soon perfect a brand of yellow journalism that runs strong today and who recognized that "the most powerful force blocking Nixon's path to the White House was television," with its remorseless attention to darting eyes, mutters, and five o'clock shadows. Notes O'Donnell, "Ailes became more influential in Republican politics than Nixon ever was," giving the 1968 campaign a dimension of continuing influence—for if no Nixon, then no Trump, who shares with the disgraced president more than unprecedentedly huge armies of protestors at their respective inaugurations. A careful, circumstantial study that compares favorably to Theodore H. White's presidents series and that politics junkies will find irresistible.
