The Rise of a Prairie Statesman by Thomas J. Knock

He was deeply troubled by the red-baiting in the 1948 election between Henry Wallace and Harry Truman. Already a married man with children when he plunged into his graduate work in American labor history and a winning debater since high school, McGovern naturally gravitated toward politics.

Despite the Republican slant in the state of South Dakota, there was also a strong progressive streak, as most residents admired and benefited from the policies of the New Deal, especially in farming and agriculture. Raised in the small, insular town of Mitchell, South Dakota, the product of a Methodist minister and his second wife, McGovern was inculcated by the devout, hardscrabble, patriotic America of the Depression and World War II-indeed, he returned from the war a hero as a bomber pilot. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order, 1992, etc.) depicts his subject as really too good to be true, or at least too good to become president: decent, conscientious, and authentically progressive. Knock (Foreign Relations, 20th-Century U.S. In detailing his opposition to that expanding conflict, Knock not only shows how McGovern emerged as a national leader, but also demonstrates the relevance of his vision to the challenges our nation faces today.The first volume in the biography of George McGovern (1922-2012). After serving two terms in the House of Representatives and as Director of Food for Peace in the Kennedy administration, in 1962 McGovern won a seat in the United States Senate, where he emerged as a prescient critic of America's descent into the Vietnam War.

in history and then the college classroom before he settled upon a career in politics. Upon returning home, he embarked on a path that took him from the ministry to a Ph.D. Knock describes McGovern's transformation from a shy young boy into a confident debater who, after America went to war in 1941, volunteered for service in the Army Air Corps as a B-24 bomber pilot and flew 35 combat missions over Germany and Austria. In Rise of a Prairie Statesman: The Life and Times of George McGovern (Princeton UP, 2016), the first in a projected two-volume biography of the senator and Democratic Party presidential nominee, Thomas Knock chronicles McGovern's life and career from his Depression-era upbringing in South Dakota to his 1968 reelection campaign and emergence as a presidential contender. George McGovern is largely remembered today for his dramatic loss to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential campaign, yet he enjoyed a long career characterized by many remarkable achievements.

The Rise of a Prairie Statesman by Thomas J. Knock