There are certain types of history books that I dislike. One type is the book with an agenda, when an author attempts to prove a point whatever the evidence. Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt by James P. Duffy falls into this category.

It’s not that the research is poor or that Duffy’s defense of Lindbergh is without merit. The research appears to be solid and Lindbergh really did get an undeserved reputation as a Nazi lover and anti-Semite. Duffy clears up both issues in a way that seems complete. He writes that Roosevelt and Lindbergh had fundamental differences, and that those differences drove Roosevelt to create a smear campaign. I think there may be some gaps in that argument … but it is one that seems worth exploring.

But the book clearly has an agenda. In the Preface Duffy writes, “President Obama, like FDR, is an elitist who has filled his administration with other elitists and his favorite “experts.” The president doesn’t want to change Washington, but American itself…..Then the name calling and demonizing began by the White House….People who protested Obama’s policies were “racists,” “Nazis,” and “unpatriotic.”

I had to stifle a laugh at that. Since when did President’s not go after people who disagreed with their policies?

Anyway, Duffy then goes on to correlate FDR’s smear campaign of Lindbergh with what Obama is supposedly doing to people who disagree with him (specifically mentioning Limbaugh, Palin, Beck and others). Get the idea? There is clearly an agenda here, an attempt to tease out a thread of information from the past and apply it to the present. Even if you agree with Duffy’s perspective, what value does the book have from a historical perspective if you know the author is attempting to prove a point about a present day political viewpoint? It calls into question all of his research because he’s writing with an agenda.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet a member of the Lindbergh family, and I can only imagine how this book must be an irritant. This isn’t history. It’s politics. Which undermines any historical insight the book might have. Don’t bother with this book.

The other type of history book that I dislike is the political memoir. Especially when they arrive shortly after the history has happened. So I had a low expectations about Decision Points by George W. Bush. To be fair, I had negative reaction to Clinton’s book, and I will have that same negative perspective when Obama writes his.

My point is that I’m not being political when I say I don’t like Bush’s book; I just don’t think of these types of books as being particularly helpful. They are written for 1) money, 2) to shape public perspective, and 3) to make a lame attempt at recording history as the writer saw it.

Now, having said that, I found Decision Points to be fairly well done. I did not read all 500 pages of it — I skimmed parts. But I read enough to understand the former President’s approach. I don’t agree with a lot in it, and I don’t think I learned that much from it, but I felt it was a fair account of the Bush Presidency. If you are a fan of the man, you might enjoy this book. If you were asleep from 2000-2008, you might learn a lot here.

But as an account of the first decade of the new millennium, it’s clearly an attempt to justify his decisions and shape the historical narrative. Sorry, but I just don’t like it when an author focuses on doing that. Especially those authors who are politicians.