My Book: "A Compelling Account"

As I noted earlier this week, Jill Lepore wrote a compelling piece for this week's New Yorker on the birth of modern politics, through the story of the pioneering California campaign consultants, Whitaker & Baxter.  As it happens, I featured them in my Random House book--on the birth of modern politics, through the story of Upton Sinclair's incredible leftwing race for governor of California in 1934--which won the Goldsmith Book Prize in 1993.  Lepore's article opens with a lengthy look at the Sinclair campaign, where Whitaker & Baxter, played a key role, but did not mention my book.

Happy to report, however, that she has written a blog post at the magazine, looking at her research, and here she cites my book up front, noting that I called the Sinclair race "the campaign of the century"--indeed, that's the title of the book--and hailing the book:  "Mitchell’s compelling account traces the chicanery not principally of Whitaker and Baxter but of a number of Sinclair’s other adversaries, including Louis B. Mayer of M.G.M."