{{Short description|American journalist and author (1930–2013)}} {{Infobox person | name = Robert Shogan | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = September 12, 1930 | birth_place = New York City | death_date = {{dda|2013|10|30|1930|9|12}} | death_place = Washington, D.C. | education = Syracuse University | occupation = Journalist and author | spouse = | children = | known_for = | credits = ''Los Angeles Times'' | URL = }} '''Robert Shogan''' (September 12, 1930 – October 30, 2013) was an American journalist and author.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-robert-shogan-20131101-story.html|title=Robert Shogan dies at 83; Times' Washington political correspondent|date=November 1, 2013|newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> He spent more than 25 years at the Washington bureau of the ''Los Angeles Times''.<ref name="auto">{{Cite news |last=Langer |first=Emily |date=October 31, 2013 |title=Robert Shogan, author and longtime political reporter for Los Angeles Times, dies at 83 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/robert-shogan-author-and-longtime-political-reporter-for-los-angeles-times-dies-at-83/2013/10/31/466d7e66-4236-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref> He also worked for the ''Detroit Free Press'', ''Newsweek'', and ''The Wall Street Journal''. He taught at Johns Hopkins University, among other institutions.<ref name="auto"/>
==Books== Shogan wrote many works of historical nonfiction and media criticism. Particularly praised was ''The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising'', published in 2004. ''Kirkus Reviews'' called it "a stunning re-creation of the great West Virginia uprising of 1921 ... crackingly told."<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=The Battle of Blair Mountain |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-shogan/the-battle-of-blair-mountain/ |magazine=Kirkus Reviews}}</ref> ''The Journal of Appalachian Studies'' declared that "among other successes, this book presents a valuable short history of the U.S. labor movement and its discontents through crystalline evocations of figures like Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, the Wobblies, and Mother Jones."<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Precoda, Karl|title = Reviewed work: The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising, Robert Shogan; the Shot from the Mountain: An Appalachian Odyssey, Claude S. Phillips|year=2006|journal=Journal of Appalachian Studies|volume=12|issue=1|pages=144–146|jstor = 41446709}}</ref> Greil Marcus, in a revised edition of ''The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes'', cited it as a worthy source about the Battle of Blair Mountain.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hpWUkJlJYRAC&q=robert+shogan+greil+marcus&pg=PA223|title=The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes|first=Greil|last=Marcus|date=2011|publisher=Picador|isbn=978-1429961585|via=Google Books}}</ref>
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?17644-1/the-riddle-power ''Booknotes'' interview with Shogan on ''The Riddle of Power'', April 21, 1991], C-SPAN| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?65211-1/robert-shogan-interview ''Washington Journal'' interview with Shogan on ''Hard Bargain'', May 5, 1995], C-SPAN| video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?67149-1/fdr-winston-churchill Presentation by Shogan on ''Hard Bargain'', September 14, 1995], C-SPAN| video4 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?118257-1/the-double-edged-sword Presentation by Shogan on ''The Double-Edged Sword'', January 8, 1998], C-SPAN| video5 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?164788-1/bad-news-press-wrong Presentation by Shogan on ''Bad News'', June 7, 2001], C-SPAN| video6 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?172374-4/war-end ''Washington Journal'' interview with Shogan on ''War Without End'', September 1, 2002], C-SPAN| video7 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?285392-1/no-sense-decency Presentation by Shogan on ''No Sense of Decency'', April 16, 2009], C-SPAN| video8 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?296845-1/prelude-catastrophe Presentation by Shogan on ''Prelude to Catastrophe'', October 23, 2010], C-SPAN}}
''Publishers Weekly'' wrote that ''Bad News: Where the Press Goes Wrong in the Making of the President'', published in 2001, was a "carefully crafted retrospective on the media and presidential campaigns since JFK ... a highly readable chronicle."<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781566633468|title=Nonfiction Book Review: BAD NEWS: Where the Press Goes Wrong in the Making of the President by Robert Shogan, Author BAD NEWS: Where the Press Goes Wrong in the Making of the P $26 (308p) ISBN 978-1-56663-346-8|magazine=Publishers Weekly}}</ref> Reviewing 1991's ''The Riddle of Power: Presidential Leadership From Truman to Bush'', ''The New York Times'' stated that it was "on balance ... a lively and straightforward primer on leadership."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mitgang |first=Herbert |author-link=Herbert Mitgang |date=March 9, 1991 |title=Books of The Times; How Roosevelt's Successors Compare |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/09/books/books-of-the-times-how-roosevelt-s-successors-compare.html |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>
==Selected bibliography== * ''The Detroit Race Riot: A Study in Violence'', with Tom Craig (1964) * ''A Question of Judgment: The Fortas Case and the Struggle for the Supreme Court'' (1972) * ''Promises to Keep: Carter's First Hundred Days'' (1977) * ''Riddle of Power: Presidential Leadership from Truman to Bush'' (1991) * ''Hard Bargain: How FDR Twisted Churchill's Arm, Evaded the Law, and Changed the Role of the American Presidency'' (1995) * ''Bad News: Where the Press Goes Wrong in the Making of the President'' (2001) * ''The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising'' (2004) * ''No Sense of Decency: The Army–McCarthy Hearings: A Demagogue Falls and Television Takes Charge of American Politics'' (2009) * ''Prelude to Catastrophe: FDR's Jews and the Menace of Nazism'' (2010) * ''Harry Truman and the Struggle for Racial Justice'' (2013)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{C-SPAN|1262}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shogan, Robert}} Category:American male journalists Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:1930 births Category:2013 deaths Category:21st-century American male writers Category:20th-century American male writers
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