THE CAPITOL
DOME BOOKSHELF
New & Noteworthy Books
on Congressional and
Capitol History
We continue our series presenting newly published books on
congressional or Capitol history that are worthy of the attention of
our readers. If you have a recommendation for a book to add to the
Capitol Dome bookshelf, please contact us at uschs@uschs.org.
Books should be nonfiction, pertain to the history of the Capitol or
Congress, and have been published within the last two years.
NEIL MACNEIL AND RICHARD A. BAKER
The American Senate: An Insider's History
(Oxford University Press, 2013), 472 pp.
Fifty years ago
Time magazine's
chief congressional correspondent Neil
MacNeil published a seminal history of the United
States House of Representatives, Forge of
Democracy. Two generations of students
of congressional history have turned to
that book as the single best introduction
to the history of the institution. For
seventeen years prior to his death in
2008, he doggedly researched the upper
chamber, the United States Senate, to
compile a companion volume. The
Senate's first official historian, Richard A.
Baker, who had held regular conversations with MacNeil about his work, took
up the project after he retired as Senate
historian in 2009 and brought the book
to completion.
The result of this fortuitous collaboration is a book that no less an authority
than historian William E. Leuchtenburg
has called "the best history of the
United States Senate ever written. . . .
With trenchant analysis and scores
of great yarns, this lively book draws the
reader directly into the Senate
chamber—from the days of Calhoun
and Webster to the era of Goldwater
and Byrd."
This latest addition to the Capitol
Bookshelf is available for purchase from
the U.S. Capitol Historical Society by
mail order or from our online store
at www.uschs.org.
Contest Winners Recognized
At the May 3 symposium, one of our
2012 Making Democracy Work Student
Essay Contest winners accepted his prize.
omar Qureshi was an eighth grade
student at Greenspun Junior High School
in Henderson, Nevada when he
competed in the contest. His essay,
"What You Don't Know Can Hurt You,"
was judged the most outstanding
entry in the Junior Division (grades 6-8).
In April, Vaishnavi Rao accepted the
first place award in the Senior Division
(grades 9-12). She was a junior at Canyon
Crest Academy in San Diego, California
when she submitted her essay, "The
Unsung Hero's Gift to America," to the
2012 contest.
The schools each student attended
when they entered the contest also
received awards this spring. For more
information about Qureshi and Rao, visit
the News & Events section of our
Omar Qureshi (right) with USCHS Vice
President for Scholarship and Education Don Kennon.
SUMMER 2013
USCHS Board Member Richard Holwill
presented Vaishnavi Rao (left) with
her award on behalf of sponsor Amway
Corporation.
website, www.uschs.org. For more
information about the current Making
Democracy Work Student Essay Contest,
see the back cover of this newsletter or
THE CAPITOL DOME 41
