Chasing the Scream
Johann Hari
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Chris Matthews Complete Library E-book Box Set
A bundle of Chris Matthews's political writing, from a portrait of Jack Kennedy and a Kennedy-Nixon rivalry study to a memoir of working for Tip O'Neill, worth reading for close-up access to Washington.
What It's About
This is a collection of several separate Chris Matthews books rather than a single work, so what you get depends on which titles you open. The set mixes three modes: biography of John F. Kennedy and the rivalry between Kennedy and Richard Nixon, political analysis in the vein of his Hardball books, and memoir, including an account of his Philadelphia Catholic upbringing and his years near the centre of Democratic power as an aide to Speaker Tip O'Neill.
Matthews writes as a journalist who has watched politicians up close. His approach leans on scene, personal detail, and the sort of anecdote that comes from being in the room. He is less interested in archival footnotes than in what people were like and how they behaved under pressure. The prose is quick and conversational, and he is not shy about offering opinions on who was admirable and who was not.
Reading the set feels like sitting with a well-connected observer who wants to tell you how things really worked. The historical books move at a brisk pace, and the memoir gives the political material a personal frame. Keep in mind that the collection is catalogued as Science, but it is really political history, biography, and commentary.
Read this if you…
- want an accessible, opinionated introduction to Kennedy and the Nixon rivalry
- are curious how Washington deals actually got done from people who were there
- enjoy political memoir that blends personal history with national events
Skip it if you…
- want a rigorous, source-heavy academic history with extensive citations
- expect a balanced survey of the political spectrum from a neutral narrator
Key Ideas
- 1
Rivalry as a shaping force in politics
The Kennedy and Nixon book treats their relationship as a central story rather than a footnote. Matthews argues that two men who began as contemporaries and then became enemies both changed, and that their rivalry influenced the national mood. It is a useful way to think about how personal friction can carry into public policy and campaign strategy.
- 2
A portrait of Kennedy as a personality
The Jack Kennedy biography focuses on the man as much as the officeholder. Matthews is interested in the charm, the contradictions, and the private temperament that made Kennedy hard to pin down. Readers who want a sense of what the president was like to be around will find more of that here than in policy-focused histories.
- 3
Access journalism and the view from inside
Matthews's time as an aide to Tip O'Neill gives his accounts a close-range quality. He shows how deals get made, how leaders manage colleagues, and how the rules of power operate day to day. The strength is texture and insider logic; the trade-off is that the view is inevitably shaped by the vantage point of someone who was in the middle of it.
- 4
Bipartisanship and the Reagan-O'Neill era
The Tip and the Gipper book looks at how two strong political opponents could still work together on matters they considered important. Matthews uses the story to reflect on what cooperation looked like in an era of sharp ideological division, and whether that kind of working relationship is still possible.
Limitations
Matthews's perspective is that of a participant and a partisan-leaning commentator, so the books are best read as informed opinion rather than neutral record. Some reviewers have found the Kennedy material admiring to a fault, and the anecdotes can be hard to verify. The political analysis in the older titles reflects the concerns of their own decades and has dated in places. Because the set bundles separate books, it lacks a single unifying argument, and readers looking for depth on policy, economics, or social history will find less here than in dedicated scholarship.
Questions Readers Ask
- Is this box set worth buying instead of the individual books?
- It depends on how many titles you want. If you are interested in only one or two, buying them separately may cost less. If you want the biographies, the analysis, and the memoir together to compare Matthews's approach across subjects, the set offers a convenient way to read his range in one place.
- Is the content still relevant to today's politics?
- The Kennedy and Nixon material and the O'Neill-era memoir remain useful for understanding how modern politics developed. The commentary on the media and the political scene is more time-bound, so treat those parts as a snapshot of their period and read them with that in mind.
- How does Matthews compare to a major historian like Robert Caro?
- Caro is far more exhaustive, with deep archival research and long, detailed narratives. Matthews is quicker and more personal, drawing on his own experience and conversation. If you want the definitive scholarly account, Caro is the better choice; if you want an engaging, insider-flavoured read, Matthews works well.
- Published
- 2013
- ISBN
- 9781476764696
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Category
- Science
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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