Welcome to the WBZ Book Club. I'm Jordan Rich. If you think that this political era that we're living through is the most contentious ever in American history, you might want to think again. There's a book called A Magnificent Catastrophe, The Tumultuous Election of eighteen hundred, America's first presidential campaign. It's by Poetzer Prize winner Edward Larson. It's the story
of the first partisan election. In seventeen ninety six, John Adams, the Federalists, became president, with Vice President Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the Republicans the opposition. Then, in seventeen ninety nine, the two of them faced off to run against each other, and in that contest scoreless charges insults of all kinds, with each side calling the other a supreme threat to democracy.
Personalities of that period were sharp and exercised, big names like Samuel Adams, James Madison, J Pinkney Monroe, not to mention Alexander Hamilton, and Republican organizer Aaron Burr. A Magnificent Catastrophe by Edward Larson. The Book Club w BZ, Boston's news radio