Matters of State: A Political Excursion

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Philip Hamburger joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1939 and hasn't stopped writing since. He has made something of a specialty of writing about presidential inaugurations, and in his new book, Matters of State: A Political Excursion, he collects ten of those pieces, covering the inaugural celebrations of presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon (both elections), Carter, Reagan (both elections), Bush, and Clinton. Published just as the nation's capital geared up for the first inauguration of the 21st century, Matters of State provided the perfect opportunity to revisit a perceptive observer's half century of quadrennial dispatches from inside the Beltway.

Baltimore Sun

Mr. Hamburger writes with extraordinary skill and sparkle and perception of things which most of us fail to discern at all.

James Chace

Twenty-six beautifully written pieces ... For those trying to recover from the Rube Goldberg-like vote-counting mechanisms in Florida [it's] the best antidote I can recommend.
— New York Times Book Review

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Hamburger has been covering the American political scene for the New Yorker since 1939; and in this collection of 26 finely crafted essays from that magazine and a few other sources, he captures both the changing nature of that scene and its unchanging essence of democratic stability. Hamburger (Friends Talking in the Night) focuses on personalities and the grand pageants of U.S. politics--conventions and especially presidential inaugurations (by his own count, he has attended 14, and here writes on ten of them). His personality pieces, mostly from the 1940s and '50s on such notables as Fiorello La Guardia and Dean Acheson, are remarkably revealing, not in the faux confessional mode so popular today but through Hamburger's account of small details: how someone walks or talks, what he eats (all are men), how he smokes a cigar. But Hamburger's best pieces are on political spectacles. Affecting a gee-whiz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington persona, he remains in awe of the peaceful transfer of power that presidential inaugurations represent. Still, he never misses a chance to gently skewer the pretensions of those who by luck or largesse find themselves in attendance at an inaugural ball. Hamburger presents each piece as it originally appeared, offering only occasional introductory paragraphs. Far from dating the entries, such a strategy allows them to retain a rich patina of authenticity; in his role as Everyman, he allows us to see ourselves as we did then. Elegantly sparse, immensely amusing, modestly insightful, this is simply superb writing. Any reader with an interest in politics past or present will enjoy indulging in this little volume. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

A collection of essays on American political life that Hamberger originally wrote for magazine and other publications between 1946 and 1996. Among his topics are the Truman inauguration, Joseph McCarthy, the Kennedy election, Nixon's second inauguration, a Roosevelt retrospective from 1983, and Clinton. There is no index or bibliography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

James Chace

Matters of State: A Political Excursion is a collection of 26 beautifully written pieces that mostly appeared in The New Yorker, where Hamburger has been covering America's political vagaries since 1939; he has attended 14 inaugurations in all, and he writes about 10 of them in this collection.
—New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

More than 50 years' worth of reminiscences from a longtime political observer. Hamburger (Friends Talking in the Night, 1998, etc.), a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1939, here reprints a selection of pieces he has written over the past six decades. The vast majority are his reports from presidential inaugurations—he's attended 14 so far—but there are also several intimate sketches of New York mayors. Longer, and quite moving, portraits of Dean Acheson and Learned Hand are thrown into the mix for good measure, reinforcing the alternation between Washington and New York. The amazing thing is just how fresh and insightful these collected pieces seem. Hamburger writes wonderfully and has apparently done so for well over half a century. His gossipy, clever, passionate missives from the swearing-ins of various presidents are priceless, combining acute observations with dry wit and genuine wonder at the continuing success of American democracy. His conversations with New York mayors are far more intimate, and generally better lubricated with drink, but they are no less carefully wrought. And a brilliantly bleak description of the second Nixon inauguration, which the New Yorker refused to run, is a masterpiece of harrowing, foreshadowed tragedy. As a collection, these pieces stand as a monument to a life passionately lived and carefully noted. It is a monument constructed of the lives of others, though, for we learn little more about Hamburger than that he likes white bean soup, long underwear, and Vermeer—and, of course, that he has beautifully even-keeled stories to tell about the perpetual ebbing and flowing of American politics. Marvelous, gentle,uncynical,lyrical—everything that American politics itself is not.