Forthcoming

A Madman’s Will

The untold saga of John Randolph’s 383 slaves, freed in his much-contested will of 1821, finally comes to light.

Few legal cases in American history are as riveting as the controversy surrounding the will of Virginia Senator John Randolph (1773-1833), which—almost inexplicably—freed all 383 of his slaves in one of the largest and most publicized manumissions in American history. So famous is the case that Ta-Nehisi Coates has used it to condemn Randolph’s cousin, Thomas Jefferson, for failing to free his own slaves. With this groundbreaking investigation, historian Gregory May now reveals a more surprising story, showing how madness and scandal shaped John Randolph’s wildly shifting attitudes toward his slaves—and how endemic prejudice in the North ultimately deprived the freedmen of the land Randolph had promised them. Sweeping from the legal spectacle of the contested will through the freedmen’s dramatic flight and horrific reception in Ohio, A Madman’s Will is an extraordinary saga about the alluring promise of freedom and its tragic limitations.

An Honest Man

John Adams’s presidency hasn’t gotten a lot of respect. He is admired for other accomplishments, but his term as the second president tends to be treated as an exception. It would have been difficult for anyone to follow George Washington, and Adams’s various foibles, and some decisions he made in office, have consigned him to being remembered as one of the least effective presidents.

But as presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky argues in An Honest Man: The Inimitable Presidency of John Adams, Adams’s presidency served to save a divided nation. He took office with little guidance from his predecessor, and was soon faced with an intense partisan divide, debates over immigration and citizenship, fears of political violence, potential for foreign conflict, and a citizenry unconvinced that the presidency could even function without Washington.

Adams would keep the nation on an even keel domestically and in world affairs. He defended the integrity of elections, helped to define the role of the president for future administrations, and participated in a peaceful transition of power from one party to another even when it cost him his political future.

Every once and so often there is a chance to refurbish a president’s reputation and it is past time to reconsider Adams’s term as president, which has largely been considered the low point of his political career. An Honest Man challenges that perception, suggesting that it was Adams’s ability to lead the country through disorder and disruption – and his determined actions to protect the executive branch and establish its authority – that preserved the presidency for posterity.

The Wandering Mind

It is easy to imagine that our constant state of distractedness is peculiar to the digital age, but distraction has been a concern in every era—perhaps never more so than for Christian monks living in Ireland, Iran, and the places in between, from 300 to 900 CE. Though they quit the world for lives of seclusion, monks still struggled to concentrate, and they came to perceive distraction as a fundamental problem.

As Jamie Kreiner argues in The Wandering Mind, we are obsessed with distraction today in large part because they were. Exploring the sophisticated techniques they developed in their endless quest to concentrate—from unforgiving sleep regimens to massive meditational construction projects—Kreiner demonstrates that their insights, remarkably, can still be useful to us now.

Blending history and psychology, The Wandering Mind is a witty account of human fallibility that bridges a distant era and our own.

The Lincoln Miracle

The leadup to the presidential election of 1860 found America bitterly divided, as the dominant Democratic Party broke up over the intense pressure of slavery, and the six-year-old Republican Party sought a leader who could win. The story of the convention to name the Republican Party’s candidate – eight days that led to Abraham Lincoln’s nomination – makes clear that Lincoln’s extraordinary quest to lead the party might have collapsed, with fatal consequences for the United States of America.

The convention was held in Chicago, although Lincoln himself waited for news from Springfield, far from the heavy drinking, humor, jealousy, political animosities, and angling for power that were the stuff of political life of the times. The Lincoln Miracle: The Republican National Convention of 1860 and How It Shaped the Nation plunges the reader right into the convention, to experience the sights, sounds and smells of Chicago in 1860. The tension-filled maneuvering of the political players and the candidates’ managers echo the forces buffeting the nation — particularly over slavery and Lincoln’s vision for ending it.

With its secretive and sordid horse-trading, the convention allows us to see Lincoln’s strengths as a political strategist. His plan played out perfectly against long odds, thanks to the hard work of friends whose extraordinary loyalty he had the gift of cultivating. The Lincoln Miracle opens a window on the tremendous political forces tearing America apart as it lurched toward the bloody and catastrophic Civil War.

Strength in Numbers

The question, “can we trust the polls?” has been the headline for countless articles. After the 2020 election, pundits, politicians, and prognosticators were even more worried than they had been in 2016 about whether polling was in a crisis.

Indeed, polling has not kept up with changes in technology and in voter behavior. But while forecasters failed to anticipate the election of Donald Trump in 2016 or his strength in 2020, the accuracy of polls in those elections, as well as in midterms and various special elections has been pretty much average by historical standards.

In Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them, G. Elliott Morris urges us to resist the idea that polls are worthless and untrustworthy and instead to focus on why saving them is critical to the survival of our democratic system. As the data journalist for the Economist, Elliott covers polls and elections for the magazine. And in his book, he looks at the history of polling to explain how we got to where we are today – and considers ways in which the industry can and must change to adapt to a wave of social, economic and technological challenges.

As polling and pollsters sort out their place in our political lives, Elliott Morris is ideally placed to reflect on the contribution they can and must play in preserving our democracy.

Forthcoming

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