The Change Manifesto

January 28, 2008
Former journalist Chadwick (The General and Mrs. Washington
) deals with much more than the previously underappreciated year of 1858 in this engagingly written book. By focusing on the men who drove crucial historical events, Chadwick provides plenty of pre-1858 background to make his case that the events of that year “changed the lives of dozens of important people” and “within a few short years, the history of the nation.” Chadwick examines the lives of six who would become the biggest players in the Civil War: Lincoln, Davis, Sherman, Lee, Grant and William Seward, and two others—John Brown and Stephen Douglas—whose actions helped precipitate the conflict. He also offers an insightful look at the enigmatic, eccentric man who was in the White House in 1858, Democrat James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. Chadwick shows clearly how Buchanan dithered—on the slavery issue and in foolish foreign adventures in Paraguay, Mexico and Cuba, among other things—while Rome was about to burn. Buchanan, Chadwick correctly notes, “was certainly not the sole cause of the Civil War,” just “one of many, but his ineffectiveness as chief executive dealt a crippling blow to the nation.”

August 4, 2008
Joining a chorus of criticisms over post-9/11 changes in U.S. law, Whitehead adds this somewhat muddled laundry list of rights infringements during the past decade. Beginning with a critique of the lack of “meaningful discourse” in contemporary society, the author contends that a mere change in administration will do nothing to ameliorate current circumstances if the American people fail to safeguard their own rights. While he notes that this book is intended as a “freedom manual,” the ensuing pages form more of a collection of grievances that linger in such possible constitutional crises as the bizarre “robofly,” a drone allegedly used by the CIA for domestic spying purposes, and a “Big Brother in the sky” program of satellite surveillance by the Office of Homeland Security. Whitehead's advice for countering such measures remains in the sphere of theoretical exhortations to “ responsibility for our own lives” and “stand and fight.” The book does provide a useful primer on the Bill of Rights; however, readers unfamiliar with the “462 words” guaranteeing American freedom are unlikely to slog through the first 200-plus pages of this book to get there.