This Country
My Life in Politics and History
Published on 1. June 2021
352 pages
978-1-9821-3486-0 (ISBN)
Description
A "quintessentially American" (Policy Magazine) memoir of politics and postwar history from Chris Matthews, New York Times bestselling author and long-time host of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.
In This Country, Chris Matthews "has written a love letter to his country" (Joy Reid, host of The ReidOut and author of The Man Who Sold America), offering a panoramic portrait of post-World War II America through the story of his remarkable life and career. It is a story of risk and adventure, of self-reliance and service, of loyalty and friendship. It is a story driven by an abiding faith in our country.
Raised in a large Irish-Catholic family in Philadelphia at a time when kids hid under their desks in atomic war drills, Chris's life etched a pattern: take a leap, live an adventure, then learn what it means. As a young Peace Corps graduate, Chris moved to DC and began knocking on doors on Capitol Hill. With dreams of becoming what Ted Sorensen had been for Jack Kennedy, Chris landed as a staffer to Utah Senator Frank Moss, where his eyes were opened to the game of big-league politics.
In the 1970s, Matthews mounted a campaign for Congress as a Democratic maverick running against Philadelphia's old political machine. He didn't win the most votes, but his grit put him on the path to a top job in the White House. As a speechwriter for President Carter, Matthews witnessed the triumphs and tragedies of that administration; from the diplomatic brilliance of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty to the disaster of the Iran hostage crisis. After Carter's defeat, Chris became chief of staff to legendary Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, a perch that gave him an on-the-job PhD in American politics during the Reagan years.
Chris then leapt to the other side of the political matrix as a columnist and reporter. For the San Francisco Examiner, he covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first all-races election in South Africa, the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and every American presidency from Reagan to George W. Bush. Chris would go on to pioneer cable news with a fast-paced, no-nonsense television program. His show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, would become a political institution for twenty years.
As Chris charts his political odyssey, he paints an animated picture of a nation searching for its soul. He reflects with grace and wisdom, showcasing the grand arc of the American story through one life dedicated to its politics.
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Chris Matthews is the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America, and Hardball: How Politics Is Played, Told by One Who Knows the Game. Matthews was a presidential speechwriter and top aide to Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. For a generation he hosted Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, which is now exclusively on Substack.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Introduction
- Book I
- Chapter One: Irish Enough
- Chapter Two: God's Country
- Chapter Three: A Trip to Washington
- Chapter Four: We Were the Kids Who Hid Under Our Desks
- Chapter Five: Catholic School Back Then
- Chapter Six: Kennedy vs. Nixon
- Chapter Seven: La Salle
- Chapter Eight: Holy Cross
- Chapter Nine: Chapel Hill
- Chapter Ten: Montreal
- Chapter Eleven: Swaziland
- Chapter Twelve: African Mysteries
- Book II
- Chapter Thirteen: Capitol Hill
- Chapter Fourteen: Us Capitol Police Officer
- Chapter Fifteen: Senate Legislative Assistant
- Chapter Sixteen: Miami
- Chapter Seventeen: First Campaign
- Chapter Eighteen: Freelance
- Chapter Nineteen: Brooklyn
- Chapter Twenty: Running Anyway
- Chapter Twenty-One: Back to Washington
- Chapter Twenty-Two: Jimmy Carter
- Chapter Twenty-Three: Kathleen
- Chapter Twenty-Four: Presidential Speechwriter
- Chapter Twenty-Five: Scramble
- Chapter Twenty-Six: Tip O'Neill
- Book III
- Chapter Twenty-Seven: Writer
- Chapter Twenty-Eight: San Francisco
- Chapter Twenty-Nine: White House Dinner
- Chapter Thirty: Hungary
- Chapter Thirty-One: Berlin Wall
- Chapter Thirty-Two: A Boomer as President
- Chapter Thirty-Three: A Farewell in North Cambridge
- Chapter Thirty-Four: Bringing Down Apartheid
- Chapter Thirty-Five: Television
- Chapter Thirty-Six: Mom
- Chapter Thirty-Seven: Clinton Redux
- Chapter Thirty-Eight: Good Friday
- Chapter Thirty-Nine: Millennial
- Chapter Forty: Attack on a September Morning
- Chapter Forty-One: A War of Our Choosing
- Chapter Forty-Two: Barack Obama
- Chapter Forty-Three: Duel
- Chapter Forty-Four: A Funeral in Rome
- Chapter Forty-Five: Thrill
- Chapter Forty-Six: Kathleen Matthews for Congress
- Chapter Forty-Seven: Trump
- Chapter Forty-Eight: Hardball
- Chapter Forty-Nine: This Country
- Photographs
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Index
- Copyright
