Books by Clay Risen

A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination

by Clay Risen

A few hours after Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at a Memphis motel, violent mobs had looted and burned several blocks of Washington a few miles north of the White House, centered around the U Street commercial district. Quick action by D.C. police quelled the violence, but shortly before noon the next day, looting and arson broke out anew -- not just along U Street, but in two other commercial districts as well.

Over the next several days, the immediate crisis of the riots was matched by an equally ominous sense among the nation's political leadership that they were watching the final dissolution of the 1960s liberal dream. For many whites who watched flames overtake city after city -- Washington, Chicago, Baltimore, Kansas City -- the April riots were an unfathomable and deeply troubling response during what should have been a time of national mourning. To them the rioters were little better than common criminals. But a look at the average rioter complicates such conclusions: they were primarily young (under 25) and male, but most made a decent salary, had a better than average education, and had no previous arrest record. In interviews and testimonies afterward, rioters recalled a sense of release, of striking back at the "system."

To say that the riots meant different things to different people would be exceedingly trite if it weren't also exceedingly true. In ways large and small, the King riots solidified attitudes and trends that destroyed the momentum behind racial progress, fatally wounded postwar domestic liberalism, created new divisions among blacks and whites, and condemned urban America to decades of poverty and crime. This book will explain why they occurred, how they played out, and what they meant.

American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye: A Guide to the Nation’s Favorite Spirit

by Clay Risen

The number of commercially available American whiskeys has grown exponentially over the past 20 years—as has its popularity. Discerning drinkers will savor this, the only guide devoted solely to US-made whiskey, rye, and bourbon. Arranged alphabetically by distillery and/or brand, it offers histories, ratings, and tasting notes for over 200 whiskeys. Each main account includes the name and address of the maker, including website URL and contact information, along with its various products. In addition to finding information on how to get the best value for your money, you'll learn how to buy whiskey, how to read a label, which whiskey to give as a gift, and much more.

American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye: A Guide to the Nation's Favorite Spirit - A Cocktail Book

by Clay Risen

The bible of American whiskey has been updated—now with more than 300 entries!

Organized in an A-to-Z directory by distillery, then brand, this second edition of American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye features more than 330 whiskeys, including more than 120 new entries. Each section includes a brief history of the maker, along with its location, followed by a full account of each bottling, including details on age, proof, nose, color, body, palate, price, as well as an overall rating. A comprehensive primer provides a short history of the spirit, how it’s made, and how to enjoy it, including tips on organizing tasting sessions. Also included are a glossary of terms, a selection of top whiskeys by value and ratings, a handy checklist, and two helpful indexes. With this book, choosing from among the many whiskeys, bourbons, and ryes made in America has never been easier.

The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century

by Clay Risen

A NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2019 SELECTION

The dramatic story of the most famous regiment in American history: the Rough Riders, a motley group of soldiers led by Theodore Roosevelt, whose daring exploits marked the beginning of American imperialism in the 20th century.

When America declared war on Spain in 1898, the US Army had just 26,000 men, spread around the country—hardly an army at all. In desperation, the Rough Riders were born. A unique group of volunteers, ranging from Ivy League athletes to Arizona cowboys and led by Theodore Roosevelt, they helped secure victory in Cuba in a series of gripping, bloody fights across the island. Roosevelt called their charge in the Battle of San Juan Hill his “crowded hour”—a turning point in his life, one that led directly to the White House. “The instant I received the order,” wrote Roosevelt, “I sprang on my horse and then my ‘crowded hour’ began.” As The Crowded Hour reveals, it was a turning point for America as well, uniting the country and ushering in a new era of global power.

Both a portrait of these men, few of whom were traditional soldiers, and of the Spanish-American War itself, The Crowded Hour dives deep into the daily lives and struggles of Roosevelt and his regiment. Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, Risen illuminates a disproportionately influential moment in American history: a war of only six months’ time that dramatically altered the United States’ standing in the world. In this brilliant, enlightening narrative, the Rough Riders—and a country on the brink of a new global dominance—are brought fully and gloriously to life.

The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century

by Clay Risen

The “gripping” (The Washington Post) story of the most famous regiment in American history: the Rough Riders, a motley group of soldiers led by Theodore Roosevelt, whose daring exploits marked the beginning of American imperialism in the 20th century.

When America declared war on Spain in 1898, the US Army had just 26,000 men, spread around the country—hardly an army at all. In desperation, the Rough Riders were born. A unique group of volunteers, ranging from Ivy League athletes to Arizona cowboys and led by Theodore Roosevelt, they helped secure victory in Cuba in a series of gripping, bloody fights across the island. Roosevelt called their charge in the Battle of San Juan Hill his “crowded hour”—a turning point in his life, one that led directly to the White House. “The instant I received the order,” wrote Roosevelt, “I sprang on my horse and then my ‘crowded hour’ began.” As The Crowded Hour reveals, it was a turning point for America as well, uniting the country and ushering in a new era of global power. “A revelatory history of America’s grasp for power” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Both a portrait of these men, few of whom were traditional soldiers, and of the Spanish-American War itself, The Crowded Hour dives deep into the daily lives and struggles of Roosevelt and his regiment. Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, Risen illuminates an influential moment in American history: a war of only six months’ time that dramatically altered the United States’ standing in the world. “Fast-paced, carefully researched…Risen is a gifted storyteller who brings context to the chaos of war. The Crowded Hour feels like the best type of war reporting—told with a clarity that takes nothing away from the horrors of the battlefield” (The New York Times Book Review).

American Rye: A Guide to the Nation's Original Spirit

by Clay Risen

What is going on with rye whiskey? Suddenly both experienced and new whiskey lovers are turning to rye as their primary object of interest. And just as suddenly the market is flooded with new offerings of this “old fashioned” spirit—the growth from just a dozen brands 15 years ago to more than 225 today is unprecedented. Author and spirits expert Clay Risen now offers a road map to the phenomena of rye. A detailed introduction includes a history of rye, how it's distilled, aged, and earns its distinguishing qualities. Sections include info on how to start collecting rye, read a whiskey label, and how to have a whiskey tasting. Extensive rye whiskey accounts are organized alphabetically by distillery and brand and each of more than 225 expressions include a color photo of the bottle, info on proof, age, average price, tasting notes (nose, palate, finish), and is rated on a four-star scale. The author with a group of expert tasters “blind tasted” each and every one—a first for a spirits book of this scale. The result is a groundbreakingly innovative and invaluable asset for the whiskey lover navigating the world of American rye.

The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act

by Clay Risen

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the single most important piece of legislation passed by Congress in American history. This one law so dramatically altered American society that, looking back, it seems preordained--as Everett Dirksen, the GOP leader in the Senate and a key supporter of the bill, said, "No force is more powerful than an idea whose time has come." But there was nothing predestined about the victory: a phalanx of powerful senators, pledging to "fight to the death" for segregation, launched the longest filibuster in American history to defeat it.

The bill's passage has often been credited to the political leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson, or the moral force of Martin Luther King Jr. Yet as Clay Risen shows, the battle for the Civil Rights Act was a story much bigger than those two men. It was a broad, epic struggle, a sweeping tale of unceasing grassroots activism, ringing speeches, backroom deal-making, and, finally, hand-to-hand legislative combat. In The Bill of the Century, Clay Risen delivers the full story, in all its complexity and drama.

Single Malt: A Guide to the Whiskies of Scotland: Includes Profiles, Ratings, and Tasting Notes for More Than 330 Expressions

by Clay Risen

A follow-up tohis bestselling American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye: A Guide to the Nation's Favorite Spirit, Clay Risen's Single Malt is an introduction to the long history, fascinating science, and incredible diversity of malted whisky, as well as a practical drinker's guide to buying and enjoying hundreds of the greatest examples of the distiller's tradition. With maps of essential whisky regions of Scotland, profiles of each of the makers, and photographs of the bottles and tasting notes for each of the most widely available expressions--compiled from tasting sessions conducted by a panel of leading whisky experts--readers will discover a rich vein of knowledge about one of the world's most storied beverages.

Selected from more than one hundred active distilleries in Scotland, the 330 expressions featured in this book provide a curated yet comprehensive primer of the single-malt whiskies any growing aficionado should be familiar with. Additional features include a directory of distilleries, Risen's top whisky picks in various categories, and a full index of the expressions featured in the book.

Bourbon [Boxed Book & Ephemera Set]: The Story of Kentucky Whiskey

by Clay Risen

A visually stunning illustrated guide to the history, craft, and appreciation of Kentucky bourbon

Bourbon, we soon realized, was not just a good drink. It was a drink with a story, from a place, with an unbreakable tie to the people and the land that produced it.

Whiskey expert Clay Risen explores the origins, history, and evolution of America's distilling craft and culture in this luxurious boxed set. From boom to bust and back again, Risen tells the engrossing story of Kentucky whiskey, using interviews, photographs, and archival material to illuminate the singular region where bourbon was born. This meticulously researched book details how bourbon is made, how best to enjoy it, and how to build your own collection, along with profiles of the distilleries and makers that form the landscape of bourbon country.

Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America

by Clay Risen

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The New York Times Disunion A History of the Civil War

by Clay Risen, Edward L. Widmer, George Kalogerakis

Between 2011 and 2015, the Opinion section of The New York Times published Disunion, a series marking the long string of anniversaries around the Civil War, the most destructive, and most defining, conflict in American history. The works were startling in their range and direction, some taking on major topics, like the Gettysburg Address and the Battle of Fredericksburg, while others tackled subjects whose seemingly incidental quality yielded unexpected riches and new angles. Some come from the country's leading historians; others from those for whom the war figured in private ways, involving an ancestor or a letter found in a trunk. Disunion received wide acclaim for featuring some of the most original thinking about the Civil War in years. For millions of readers, Disunion came to define the Civil War sesquicentennial.

Now the historian Ted Widmer, along with Clay Risen and George Kalogerakis of The New York Times, has curated a collection of these pieces, covering the entire history of the Civil War, from Lincoln's election to Appomattox and beyond. Moving chronologically and thematically across all four years of hostilities, this comprehensive and engrossing work examines secession, slavery, battles, and domestic and global politics. Here are previously unheard voices-of women, freed African Americans, and Native Americans-alongside those of Lincoln, Grant, and Lee, portrayed in human as well as historical scale. David Blight sheds light on how Frederick Douglass welcomed South Carolina's secession-an event he knew would catapult the abolitionist movement into the spotlight; Elizabeth R. Varon explores how both North and South clamored to assert that the nation's "ladies," symbolic of moral purity, had sided with them; Harold Holzer deciphers Lincoln's official silence between his election to the presidency and his inauguration-what his supporters named "masterful inactivity"-and the effects it had on the splintering country.

More than any single volume ever published, Disunion reveals the full spectrum of America's bloodiest conflict and illuminates its living legacies.

Red Scare Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America

by Clay Risen

From an award-winning historian and New York Times reporter comes the timely story about McCarthyism that both “lays out the many mechanisms of repression that made the Red Scare possible…[and] describes how something that once seemed so terrifying and interminable did, in fact, come to an end” (The New Yorker)—based in part on newly declassified sources.

Now, for the first time in a generation, Clay Risen delivers a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. This period, known as the Red Scare, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, and the terrifying onset of the Cold War. Marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria, this was a defining moment in American history, completely unlike any that preceded it. Drawing upon newly declassified documents and with “scenes are so vivid that you can almost feel yourself sweating along with the witnesses” (The New York Times Book Review), journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.

Beginning with the origins of the era after WWI through to its conclusion in 1957, Risen brings to life the politics, patriotism, courage, and delirium of those years. Red Scare takes us beyond the familiar story of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklists and toward a fuller understanding of what the country went through at a time of moral questioning and perceived threat from the Left, and what we were capable of doing to each other as a result.

“Thorough, impassioned...detailed, [and] tension-packed” (Los Angeles Times), Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment.