Michael Schumacher’s The Contest: The 1968 Election and the War for America’s Soul is an extensively researched character examination of each of the power players surrounding the 1968 presidential campaign. Schumacher writes like a novelist, developing the characters in full before his storyline matures. The story unfolds in a way that keeps the reader in suspense and the excitement builds up with anecdotes and conversations, derived from oral histories, biographies, and autobiographies. Even little-known conspiracies based on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents are weaved into the narrative.

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