First published 2001
John M. Barry examines how Americans chase, grab, and lose power across multiple arenas. The award-winning author of Rising Tide turns his analytical eye to politicians like Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Jim Wright alongside athletes such as world record-holding hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah. Barry draws from his own experience as a major college football coach to expose the raw strategies that build and topple America's most influential figures. He connects the worlds of sports and politics, using athletic competition as a lens for understanding Washington's machinations. Barry transforms his earlier book-length study of Gingrich's rise and Wright's fall into a collection of profiles and essays. His personal anecdotes and opinionated voice make him as central to the narrative as the powerful figures he examines. The book reveals how political agendas shape daily life and strips away surface glamour to show the calculated maneuvering beneath. Barry offers readers a primer on American power dynamics across media, government, and athletics.
Genres: american, biography-memoir, academic, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, personal-anecdotes
Period: 20th-Century, 21st-Century
224 pages · Hardcover · University Press of Mississippi