Upton Bell Collection at UMass Lowell Libraries: Dowd

From Washington to Kennebunkport to Texas to old Europe and new Europe during the past two decades, Maureen Dowd has trained her binoculars on the Bush dynasty, putting them, as both 41 and 43 have complained to her, "on the couch." Here she wittily dissects the Oedipal loop-de-loop between father and son and the Orwellian logic of the rush to war in Iraq. It’s a turbulent odyssey charting how a Shakespearean cast of regents, courtiers and neo-con cabalists-all with their own subterranean agendas-hijack King George II’s war on terror and upend the senior Bush’s cherished internationalist foreign policy and Persian Gulf coalition.As she’s written about Bushworld, "It’s their reality. We just live and die in it."For 30 years, Maureen Dowd has written about Washington-and America-in a voice that is acerbic, passionate, outraged and incisive. But nothing has engaged her as powerfully as the extraordinary agendas, absurdities and obsessions of George the younger. Drawing upon her celebrated columns, with a new introductory essay, she probes the topsy-turvy alternative universe of a group she has made recognizable by their first names, middle initials, nicknames or numbers – 41, the Boy Emperor, Rummy, Condi, Wolfie, Uncle Dick of the Underworld, General Karl, Prince of Darkness (Richard Perle) and her own nickname from W., the Cobra-as they seek an extreme makeover of the country and the world.Bushworld, is a book any reader who cares about the real world won’t want to miss.

Fresh from her success with the best-selling Bushworld, Maureen Dowd turns her sparkling prose and wise wit to a topic even more incendiary than presidential politics: sexual politics. Four decades after the sexual revolution, nothing has worked out the way it was supposed to. The sexes are circling each other as uneasily and comically as ever, from the bedroom to the boardroom to the Situation Room, and now the New York Timescolumnist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for saucy and incisive commentary about the dangerous liaisons of Bill, Monica, Hillary and Ken Starr digs into the Y and X files, exploring the mysteries and muddles of sexual combat in America. In a new book filled with chapters that surprise and amuse, Dowd explains why getting ready for a date went from glossing and gargling to Paxiling and Googling; why men are in an evolutionary and romantic shame spiral; why women have reeled backward in many ways; why men may be biologically unsuited to hold higher office, given their diva fits and catfights, teary confessions and fashion obsessions; why women are fixated on their looks more than ever, freezing their faces and emotions in an orgy of plasticity that makes the Stepford Wives look authentic; why male politicians and male institutions get tripped up in so much monkey business; why many alpha women, from Martha to Hillary, can have a successful second act only after becoming humiliated victims; and why the new definition of Having It All is less about empowerment and equality than about flirting and getting rescued, downshifting from "You go, girl!" to "You go lie down, girl." In addition, Dowd, who has reported on historic moments on the sexual battlefield, from Geraldine Ferraro's vice-presidential run to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings to Hillary Rodham Clinton's reign as copresident, explores not only how many of these shining feminist triumphs backfired on women but also how Hillary, a feminist icon busy plotting her campaign to be the first woman president, delivered the final blow to female solidarity herself. Women's liberation has been less a steady trajectory than a confusing zigzag. Feminism lasted for a nanosecond and generated a gender tangle that has bewitched, bothered and bewildered men and women for forty years. Now comes a woman to cut through the tangle and tickle Adam's rib. The battle of the sexes will never be the same.

For 167 years, The New York Times has been in the forefront of political reporting--from memorable campaigns and elections to controversial legislation, scandals, and issues ranging from immigration, race, and gender to the economy and war. In today's turbulent times, the newspaper's political coverage is more relevant than ever; not only for the news itself, but because of the paper's leadership in defending the freedom of the press. Compiled by noted New York Times editor Andrew Rosenthal, this anthology explores the newspaper's broad scope of unparalleled political coverage and examines what has changed over the decades and what remains the same. Covering stories from 1856 to 2018, it features presidential milestones: the astounding 1860 triumph of Republicanism with Abraham Lincoln's election and Senator Barack Obama's 2008 presidential victory as racial barriers seemed, perhaps prematurely, to fall. Wars: the start of the atomic age, the fall of Saigon, the conflict in Iraq. Important legal issues like the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, the 2000 Florida presidential recount, and same-sex marriage. The course of the country's economy, such as the 2008 financial disaster and President Donald Trump's tax overhaul. Momentous protests, like the 1963 March for Civil Rights, Kent State, the takeover of Wounded Knee, Black Lives Matter, and the MeToo movement. Political scandals and investigations, from Watergate to the firing of F.B.I. director James B. Comey. And so much more. With 60 photographs as well as reproductions of front-page stories, here are the noteworthy political articles from The New York Times archives that are sure to engross readers. Included are stories on tumultuous campaigns and surprising elections, scandals that rocked the world, the waging of war--from "good" wars (World Wars I and II) to "bad" wars (Vietnam), groundbreaking legislation, important protests, and hot button issues like feminism, LGBTQ rights, and DACA. The 81 articles include: "Demands Oil Regulation--La Follette Committee Suggests 8 Immediate Remedies" (March 5, 1923) "Welch Assails McCarthy's 'Cruelty' and 'Recklessness' in Attack on Aide"--W. H. Lawrence (June 10, 1954) "Vietnam: The Signs of Stalemate"--R. W. Apple Jr. (August 7, 1967) Goal Is Harmony--President-Elect [Nixon] Vows His Administration Will Be "Open"--Robert B. Semple Jr. (November 7, 1968) "Senators Bar Weakening of Equal Rights Proposal"--Eileen Shanahan (March 22, 1972) "Goldwater Vows to Fight Tactics of 'New Right'"--Judith Miller (September 16, 1981) "Raze Berlin Wall, Reagan Urges Soviet"--Gerald M. Boyd (June 13, 1987) "Riots in Los Angeles: The Blue Line"--(May 1, 1992) "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers without Courts"--James Risen and Eric Lichtblau (December 16, 2005) "Senate Repeals Ban Against Openly Gay Military Personnel"--Carl Hulse (December 18, 2010) "Donald Trump Is Elected President in Stunning Repudiation of the Establishment"--Matt Flegenheimer and Michael Barbaro (November 9, 2016) "How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science"--Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton (June 3, 2017) "After 16 Futile Years Congress Will Try Again to Legalize 'Dreamers'"--Yamiche Alcindor and Sheryl Gay Stolberg (September 5, 2017)