The President and the Assassin by Scott Miller

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the story and writing.  McKinely is mostly known for being the man who died so that Theodore Roosevelt could become president, but as this political biography of the man, his assassin and the times proves, he is worth studying too.

It was a turbulent time when we had oversized power in the hands of corporations and the uber rich - a time so similar in some ways to what is happening now that we really have an obligation to look in the mirror of history.

It is a time of anarchists - people who will and did you violence - in response to repression and strike breaking violence.  People like Emma Goldman put to voice important issues and frustrations and an obscure immigrant Czolgosz reacted to both his personal frustration and the anger in Goldman's speeches and kills the president, as a result.

McKinely is portrayed as a very charismatic man, but one thrust into wars in Cuba and the Philippines and struggles in China.  While not a man hungering for war like so many of his colleagues, he is driven by Capitalism to find a way to keep the factories humming and production up which means taking an imperialistic stance to accumulating lands offshore and across the globe.

Hawaii, China, Guam and many other locations appear in this story alongside the Haymarket violence and other domestic stories.  I am delighted that I came on to this book and discovered the depth I did not anticipate.