A Treasury of Great American Scandals

July 1, 2003
There's nothing about a certain recent president's sexual wanderings in this entertaining collection: notes Farquhar, an editor and writer at the Washington Post,"History needs a little time to percolate.... Besides, the first three centuries of American scandal should put a little perspective on the relatively minor sins of recent memory." The bad behavior is not all sexual (though there is that, too)--it sometimes involved family. George Washington kept his distance from a mother bent on publicly humiliating him. Benjamin Franklin arranged the arrest of his own son, colonial governor of New Jersey and a British loyalist. Dirty campaigns (in 1828, Andrew Jackson accused John Quincy Adams of aspiring to kingship; Adams's followers in turn called Jackson a murderer); congressional floor fights; and demagoguery all figure here. Politicians are the main offenders in this collection, but they are complemented by witch hunters in early Salem, Mass., and other"just plain strange" events. Readers who enjoyed Farquhar's earlier A Treasury of Royal Scandals will find much to savor here.

June 1, 2003
There's nothing about a certain recent president's sexual wanderings in this entertaining collection: notes Farquhar, an editor and writer at the Washington Post,"History needs a little time to percolate.... Besides, the first three centuries of American scandal should put a little perspective on the relatively minor sins of recent memory." The bad behavior is not all sexual (though there is that, too)--it sometimes involved family. George Washington kept his distance from a mother bent on publicly humiliating him. Benjamin Franklin arranged the arrest of his own son, colonial governor of New Jersey and a British loyalist. Dirty campaigns (in 1828, Andrew Jackson accused John Quincy Adams of aspiring to kingship; Adams's followers in turn called Jackson a murderer); congressional floor fights; and demagoguery all figure here. Politicians are the main offenders in this collection, but they are complemented by witch hunters in early Salem, Mass., and other"just plain strange" events. Readers who enjoyed Farquhar's earlier A Treasury of Royal Scandals will find much to savor here.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.