Summer of '71 - by John A Jenkins (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From award-winning journalist and author John A. Jenkins comes a revolutionary exploration of the summer before Watergate--a parallel world of a half-century ago when America faced events and crises strikingly similar to those of today--told through the lives and words of those who lived it.

Inflation rages. Crime is rising. Abortion rights take center stage at the Supreme Court. China poses an existential threat. Black lives are under attack. The president battles the press as he seeks to subvert not just the political order but the rule of law itself. This is the Summer of '71--a pivotal, operatic season of hope and despair, missed opportunities and era-changing decisions.

More than a half-century later, it's difficult to overstate the importance of events that defined the American experience during that fateful five-month period spanning May to September 1971. On May Day, President Nixon orchestrates a massive police-military response to disrupt the biggest anti-war demonstration in history. Two days later, the Supreme Court announces that it will take up Roe v. Wade. In the weeks and months that follow, friction escalates between the police and the Black Panthers, Congress debates universal healthcare, Attica prisoners riot, and the New York Times publishes the Pentagon Papers--a turning point that ultimately dooms Nixon's presidency and his legacy.

Summer of '71 brings it all to the page through first-person accounts that are only now becoming available: the papers, diaries, and oral histories of key players. Award-winning journalist and author John A. Jenkins witnessed many of the events himself, and draws on a multitude of sources, including Nixon's White House tapes, to tell the story of that time as no one else could. Here is both a fascinating, brilliantly researched read in its own right, and a critical lens through which to view today's political discord.

Review Quotes

Praise for John A. Jenkins' The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist

"A terrific, timely and important book, meticulously researched and enthralling to read...John Jenkins' investigative biography is an inspired and authoritative work and a great public service." --Kirkus Reviews

"Jenkins paints a picture of a clearly brilliant yet ever-striving student, law student, clerk, and attorney. Those who agree with Jenkins' argument will enjoy this meticulously researched account." --New York Times Book Review

"His life story is little known to the public, but now the first full biography of the Wisconsin native reveals a complex, intelligent, and conservative man. The thoroughly researched account is based in part on a lengthy profile from 1984 by Jenkins, who conducted the last major interview given by the private Rehnquist." --Los Angeles Times

"Many of Jenkins's explorations are fascinating and break new ground; they fill out the profile of an enormously powerful and significant man. One area where The Partisan does add to our understanding or Rehnquist is his life outside the law. These revelations humanize the late chief justice, and his ability to preside over the Court distinguish him." --Slate

"A much-awarded legal journalist serves up an investigative biography of the controversial, late chief justice." --The Wall Street Journal

"While Jenkins is an informed and balanced commentator on the politics surrounding presidential appointments to the Court, Rehnquist's legal legacy, and relationships among the justices, he is equally interested in Rehnquist the man--his character, his predilections, his demons...In an accessible and satisfying biography, Jenkins finds the right balance between the law and the man, the legal and the human." --CNN.com

"The Partisan doggedly - though somewhat selectively - chronicles the life of one of the court's most important modern justice. [M]uch remains that is worth reading and considering, especially today, as voters contemplate the alternative futures of the court that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney offer." --The Nation

"Jenkins and his research assistants pored through Rehnquist archives and the papers of other justices to illuminate some little-known corners of Chief Justice Rehnquist's life." --Reuters

"Breaks new ground by unearthing the roots of Rehnquist's judicial dogma. Jenkins is a scalding critic of both Rehnquist's constitutional philosophy and of how the late chief justice put it to work. While the book is scrupulously documented, a product of well-tilled archives, interviews, audio analysis and FBI files, Jenkins doesn't spend much time plumbing the origins of that conservatism. But neither, he suggests, did Rehnquist." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Sure to incite passions among both conservative and liberal court watchers." --Booklist

"Jenkins illuminates both the human side of Rehnquist, his parsimony and addiction to prescription painkillers, and his judicial philosophy, which generated little in the way of law but which supported a strong conservative court agenda for 33 years." --Library Journal

"A highly readable, penetrating, and challenging re-examination of the U.S. Supreme Court's sixteenth chief justice and succeeds with its concise summarization of Rehnquist's conservative judicial views while using newly available sources to look at his private life and formative experiences. In the process, Jenkins takes the reader to the doorway of a deeply profound question on how America's Constitution works: to what extent is a justice appointed on the basis of legal merit in a democratically transparent process versus a selection shrouded mostly in politics and private bargaining." --John W. Dean, author of The Rehnquist Choice and Nixon White House Counsel

About the Author

John A. Jenkins is a multi-award-winning journalist, author, publisher, and entrepreneur. With a specialty in partisans and power, he's written hundreds of features for major magazines in the U.S. and abroad, including The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and The Washington Monthly. A 4-time recipient of the American Bar Association's Gavel Award Certificate of Merit, one of the highest awards in legal journalism, he is the founder of Law Street Media, the most widely visited and highly engaged law-and-policy site on the web. Prior to starting Law Street, Jenkins served for 15 years as President & Publisher of CQ Press, the leading political science textbook and reference publishers. Currently, he co-leads the predictive-AI start-up PoliScio Analytics, which he co-founded in 2022. He lives on the east coast and can be found online at JohnaJenkins.com.