Chris Matthews – författare

A PATRIOT PLAYS HARDBALL Chris Matthews has been playing "hardball" since the day he was born. From his first political run-in in the first grade to his years working as presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, Matthews grew up loving his country and dreaming of his chance to protect it. In Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Chris Matthews is at his brilliant, blunt, bulldogged best. From the Cold War to the Clinton years, Matthews gives the straight-up account of what it means to be an American. Matthews tells us about his "God and Country" Catholic school education in Philadelphia, complete with Cold War air-raid drills, and his early enthusiasm for politics. He shares with us his life's adventures -- two years in Africa with the Peace Corps, the challenge of running for Congress in his twenties, and his three decades deep in the "belly of the beast" of American politics -- using his own experiences to give us an irreverent look at who we are and whom we trust to lead us.

First friends, then bitter enemies, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon shared a rivalry that had a dramatic impact on American history. One would become the most dashing figure of the post-World War II era, the other would live into his eighties, haunted and consumed by the rivalry. In Kennedy and Nixon, Christopher Matthews offers a surprising look at these two political giants, offering a stunning portrait that will change the way we think about both of them. Starting as congressmen in the class of 1946, the two men developed a friendship and admiration for each other that would last for more than a decade. But what drove history was the enmity between these two towering figures whose 1960 presidential contest would set the nation's bitter course for years to come. Matthews shows how the early fondness between the two men (Kennedy told a trusted friend that if he didn't receive the Democratic nomination in 1960, he would vote for Nixon) degenerated into distrust and paranoia, the same emotions that, in the early 1970's, ravaged the nation. Christopher Mattew's revealing book sheds light on this complicated relationship and the role that it played in shaping America's history.