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Rich Byrne argues that Joe McGinniss' The Selling of the President 1968 is underrated and is still relevant forty years after its publication:
Forty years on, McGinniss and the prominent Nixon staffers of his generation are in their late 60s. But The Selling of the President 1968 holds valuable lessons for the present generation of presidential campaign staffers, who are already trying to define Barack Obama and John McCain.The fact that these lessons continue to be so relevant also hints at an uncomfortable fact: There is little true innovation in American political discourse, and its purveyors recycle key language and concepts to a disturbing degree.
And LaNitra Walker reviews a show about the influential Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas:
In a 1925 letter to his future wife, Alta Sawyer, Aaron Douglas writes, "At my present rate of progress, I'll be a giant in two years. A veritable black terror. They (White America) believe that a black artist is impossible."The exhibition, Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, (on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through Aug. 3 and from Aug. 30 to Nov. 30 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture), proves that black art is not only possible but that understanding it is crucial to understanding American history.
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