JFK and LBJ: The Last Two Great Presidents

The importance of Colonel Edward M. House in twentieth-century American foreign policy is enormous: from 1913 to 1919 he served not only as intimate friend and chief political adviser to President Woodrow Wilson but also as national security adviser and senior diplomat. Yet the relationship between House and the president ended in a quarrel at the Paris peace conference of 1919and#151;largely because of Mrs. Wilsonand#8217;s hostility to Houseand#151;and House has received little sympathetic historical attention since. This extensively researched book reintroduces House and clearly establishes his contributions as one of the greatest American diplomats.

A and#147;kingmakerand#8221; in Texas politics, House joined Wilsonand#8217;s campaign in 1912 and soon was traveling through Europe as the presidentand#8217;s secret agent. He visited Europe repeatedly during World War I and played a major part in draftingand#160;Wilson's Fourteen Points and the Covenant of the League of Nations. He tried to stop the war before it began, and to end it by negotiation after it had started. His greatest achievement was to lock both sides into an armistice based on American ideals.

"The idea of 'American exceptionalism,' once a concept dear to the sectarian Left, long ago evolved into a shibboleth of the Republican Right. Godfrey Hodgson has trained his formidable intelligence against the second of these—and written a provocative exploration of American history as well as American myth."—Sean Wilentz, Princeton University

“Some of Hodgsons historical judgments warrant challenge, but this timely and deeply felt, independent-minded polemic offers powerful evidence that a belief in American exceptionalism hinders clear thinking about the nation and world.”—Thomas Bender, author of A Nation Among Nations: Americas Place in World History

“A brilliant history, from the Puritans to the present, of our belief in our exceptionalism—political, economic, and moral—and how it has lately come to support inequality and hubris.”—Walter Nugent, author of Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion  

"Godfrey Hodgson has always been a sympathetic and insightful friend of the United States.  This is what makes his dismay toward those who use the idea of American innocence to project American power so compelling."—Alan Wolfe, author of The Future of Liberalism 

“This survey is informed by Hodgsons wide learning and powerful sense that Americans are somewhat deluded in their reading of their national experience as exceptional and have allowed that belief to warp their interactions with the world.”—Mark Lytle, Bard College

“[The Myth of American Exceptionalism] is interesting and lucid as it examines the errors and exaggerations in the national self-image.” - Clive Cook, Financial Times

"Godfrey Hodgson provides readers with a grand tour through American history that offers a friendly but stern hand to explain our sense of exceptionalism in the world."  —America

"[A] nuanced, wide-ranging treatment."  —Publishers Weekly

and#8220;Hodgson introduces a twenty-first-century audience to an important figure from the Great War era, and in the process illuminates some roots of the difficulties now facing the United States and the world.and#8221;and#8212;Gaddis Smith, Yale University

and#8220;Colonel House, partly by his own preference, was always in the shadows. Now, at last, Godfrey Hodgson has brought him into the light with this biography. It does full justice to a fascinating man and one whose greatest work coincided with the emergence of the United States as a world power.and#8221;and#8212;Margaret MacMillan, author of Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World

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and#8220;Godfrey Hodgson has given us a splendid and long overdue biography of Colonel Edward M. House, Woodrow Wilsonand#8217;s alter ego and one of the most capable diplomats of the twentieth century. It is an elegantly told tale not simply of a single life nor the fondest of friendships but of an indispensable political partnership forged in the terrible second decade of the twentieth century, a malleable moment not unlike our own when the old world order collapsed and a new world order had yet to emerge.and#8221;and#8212;Michael B. Stoff, University of Texas at Austin

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A firsthand observer weighs the achievements and failures of two fabled American presidents
As a young White House correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson years in Washington, D.C., Godfrey Hodgson had a ringside seat covering the last two great presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, two men who could not have been more different. Kennedy s wit and dashing style, his renown as a national war hero, and his Ivy League Boston Brahmin background stood in sharp contrast to Lyndon Johnson s rural, humble origins in Texas, his blunt, forceful (but effective) political style, his lackluster career in the navy, and his grassroots populist instincts. Hodgson, a sharp-eyed witness throughout the tenure of these two great men, now offers us a new perspective enriched by his reflections since that time a half-century ago. He offers us a fresh, dispassionate contrast of these two great men by stripping away the myths to assess their achievements, ultimately asking whether Johnson has been misjudged. He suggests that LBJ be given his due by history, arguing that he was as great a president as, perhaps even greater than, JFK.
The seed that grew into this book was the author s early perception that JFK s performance in office was largely overrated while LBJ s was consistently underrated. Hodgson asks key questions: If Kennedy had lived, would he have matched Johnson s ambitious Great Society achievements? Would he have avoided Johnson s disastrous commitment in Vietnam? Would Nixon have been elected his successor, and if not, how would American politics and parties look today? Hodgson combines lively anecdotes with sober analyses to arrive at new conclusions about the U.S. presidency and two of the most charismatic figures ever to govern from the Oval Office."

The idea that the United States is destined to spread its unique gifts of democracy and capitalism to other countries is dangerous for Americans and for the rest of the world, warns Godfrey Hodgson in this provocative book. Hodgson, a shrewd and highly respected British commentator, argues that America is not as exceptional as it would like to think; its blindness to its own history has bred a complacent nationalism and a disastrous foreign policy that has isolated and alienated it from the global community.

Tracing the development of Americas high self regard from the early days of the republic to the present era, Hodgson demonstrates how its exceptionalism has been systematically exaggerated and—in recent decades—corrupted. While there have been distinct and original elements in Americas history and political philosophy, notes Hodgson, these have always been more heavily influenced by European thought and experience than Americans have been willing to acknowledge.

A stimulating and timely assessment of how Americas belief in its exceptionalism has led it astray, this book is mandatory reading for its citizens, admirers, and detractors.