The Rise of a Prairie Statesman: The Life and Times of George McGovern

by Thomas Knock

Overview

The first major biography of the 1972 U.S. presidential candidate and unsung champion of American liberalism

The Rise of a Prairie Statesman is the first volume of a major biography of the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate who became America's most eloquent and prescient critic of the Vietnam War. In this masterful book, Thomas Knock traces George McGovern's life from his rustic boyhood in a South Dakota prairie town during the Depression to his rise to the pinnacle of politics at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where police and antiwar demonstrators clashed in the city's streets.

Drawing extensively on McGovern's private papers and scores of in-depth interviews, Knock shows how McGovern's importance to the Democratic Party and American liberalism extended far beyond his 1972 presidential campaign, and how the story of postwar American politics is about more than just the rise of the New Right. He vividly describes McGovern's harrowing missions over Nazi Germany as a B-24 bomber pilot, and reveals how McGovern's combat experiences motivated him to earn a PhD in history and stoked his ambition to run for Congress. When President Kennedy appointed him director of Food for Peace in 1961, McGovern engineered a vast expansion of the program's school lunch initiative that soon was feeding tens of millions of hungry children around the world. As a senator, he delivered his courageous and unrelenting critique of Lyndon Johnson's escalation in Vietnam—a conflict that brought their party to disaster and caused a new generation of Democrats to turn to McGovern for leadership.

A stunning achievement, The Rise of a Prairie Statesman ends in 1968, in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, when the "Draft McGovern" movement thrust him into the national spotlight and the contest for the presidential nomination, culminating in his triumphal reelection to the Senate and his emergence as one of the most likely prospects for the Democratic nomination in 1972..

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691142999
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Series:	Politics and Society in Modern America , #121
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Thomas J. Knock is Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of the prize-winning To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order and the coauthor of The Crisis of American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twenty-first Century (both Princeton). He lives in Dallas, Texas.

Table of Contents

Prologue ix

1 Yours, for Fixing Up This World 1

2 A Boy Never Gets over His Boyhood 11

3 A Clasping of Hands Meant Everything 29

4 The Best B-24 Pilot in the World 48

5 I Would Have to Call Him a Progressive Agrarian 77

6 America Was Born in Revolution against the Established Order 101

7 The Confused and Fear-Ridden Temper of the Times 124

8 What a Loss to History! 146

9 Washington, DC 176

10 The Apostle of Agriculture, Education, and Peace 203

11 The Quest for the Senate 231

12 Food for Peace 256

13 We Are Determining the Priorities of Our National Life 286

14 The Right Song for the Wrong Season 315

15 The Cup of Peril Is Full 347

16 But There Are Still People with Hope 379

17 The Kind of Man the Future Must Have 412

Epilogue: Come Home, America 425

Acknowledgments 431

A Note on Sources 435

Abbreviations 437

Notes 439

Index 501

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The first installment of this much-anticipated biography of George McGovern is here, and it delivers in spades. Knock doesn't merely tell the rich and compelling story of the rise of this ‘prairie statesman' to political prominence. First-rate historian that he is, he also illuminates a great deal about American political culture in the middle decades of the twentieth century."—Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

"Thomas Knock has written what is sure to remain the definitive account of George McGovern's important and eventful life. But Knock's achievement goes well beyond mere biography. With empathy and insight, he traces the history of twentieth-century prairie progressivism, which like McGovern himself achieved much even while tested by severe trials. The reader reaches the end of this engrossing volume eagerly awaiting the next."—Andrew J. Bacevich, professor emeritus, Boston University

"George McGovern is remembered largely for losing badly to Richard Nixon. He should be remembered as a war hero and prairie progressive who, in troubled times, stood up for what he believed was right. Through deep research and writerly grace, Knock brings him to life."—Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon: A Man Divided

"McGovern was one of the most remarkable and least understood figures in modern American politics. He embodied some of America's most admirable and enduring values, yet today he is remembered chiefly for losing in a landslide to Nixon. Here, Knock sets the record straight. It's about time, and this thoroughly researched, thoughtfully argued, and elegantly written book is just what the job requires."—H. W. Brands, author of Reagan: The Life

"In The Rise of a Prairie Statesman, Thomas Knock provides a vivid and insightful portrait of one of the most influential and iconic figures ever to appear on the American political stage. McGovern's call, 'Come home, America,' is as provocative today as it was in 1972."—Randall B. Woods, author of LBJ: Architect of American Ambition

"This first volume of Knock's exploration of George McGovern's life offers an extremely well written and engaging account of the congressman and future presidential candidate. The Rise of a Prairie Statesman is an excellent, meticulously researched book."—Julian E. Zelizer, author of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society

"This is a fascinating book about a man whose historical reputation ought not to be dominated by one landslide defeat. Knock has done McGovern proud."—Michael Kazin, author of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation

Editorial Reviews

"This biography will stand as the standard bearer for all future biographies. It is detailed enough to get to know the person in-depth, and it is well written; unlike some biographies, this one flows smoothly, but keeps it academic for fellow researchers and students."

San Francisco Book Review

Winner of the 2017 PROSE Award in Biography & Autobiography, Association of American Publishers

From the Publisher

"Ably and engagingly written, copiously documented."

Choice

"[I]n every way, the book succeeds. This is political writing—and life-writing—of the first order."

Open Letters Monthly

2015-11-19
The first volume in the biography of George McGovern (1922-2012). Knock (Foreign Relations, 20th-Century U.S. History/Southern Methodist Univ.; To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order, 1992, etc.) depicts his subject as really too good to be true, or at least too good to become president: decent, conscientious, and authentically progressive. Raised in the small, insular town of Mitchell, South Dakota, the product of a Methodist minister and his second wife, McGovern was inculcated by the devout, hardscrabble, patriotic America of the Depression and World War II—indeed, he returned from the war a hero as a bomber pilot. Despite the Republican slant in the state of South Dakota, there was also a strong progressive streak, as most residents admired and benefited from the policies of the New Deal, especially in farming and agriculture. Already a married man with children when he plunged into his graduate work in American labor history and a winning debater since high school, McGovern naturally gravitated toward politics. He was deeply troubled by the red-baiting in the 1948 election between Henry Wallace and Harry Truman. Moreover, as the Cold War hysteria heated up, McGovern began to forge in his writing and speeches the core of his vital beliefs, as Knock unravels chronologically and meticulously. As he writes, McGovern believed that America "erred in attempts to impose its own values and institutions upon other countries" (e.g., in Latin America and China) and that the wasteful and unnecessary military-industrial buildup could better be spent at home on education, mental health facilities, and other programs. Courageously, McGovern went against the normative grain during his stint as a congressman and later senator, especially regarding the Vietnam War. Though the writing is merely capable, Knock delivers an important reconsideration of a significant 20th-century politician. A fine, steady study sets the stage for the second volume: running for president in 1972.

Kirkus Reviews