How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein

Both expanded those businesses enormously. Train enlarged the size of the ships used and extended the company’s shipping into the Pacific. Right from the outset of their careers, eerie similarities abound. Where Trump rose through his father’s successful real estate business, Train rose though his uncle’s successful shipping business.

Trump could well be the re-embodiment of George Francis Train.Īs a candidate for president, George Francis Train proclaimed, in the words of the New York Times, “that all the world was sunk…and only one man could save it, and he was GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN.” At the 2016 Republican Convention, Donald Trump likewise depicted the nation as a broken mess and declared, “I alone can fix it.” For those open to the possibility of reincarnation, Donald J. Still, at this point in time, I’d have to say my favorite is a man named George Francis Train, who nominated himself in 1872. Tough to choose. John Donkey, a cartoon candidate back in 1848? The 1960 self-declared candidate of his Universal Flying Saucer Party, Gabriel Green? Or maybe comedian Gracie Allen? Her 1940 comic campaign provides insight into women’s gradually increasing self-empowerment in her “speeches” containing a few punchlines based not on her trademark daffiness but “Graciefully” aimed at men.

Preparing for my upcoming book talk on The Presidential Fringe at DC’s Politics & Prose on February 16, I realized I should prepare myself for the question: which of the fringe candidates in the book is my favorite? His new book, The Presidential Fringe, is now available and was recently reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several books, including Vice Capades: Sex, Drugs, and Bowling from the Pilgrims to the Present (Potomac Books, 2017) How the States Got Their Shapes, a New York Times best seller and the basis for the eponymous History Channel series and American Panic: A History of Who Scares Us and Why. Mark Stein is an author, screenwriter, and playwright.

How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein