Miami and the siege of Chicago (1968)

The 1968 conventions Mailer went to both party conventions on assignment from Harper's: the Republicans in Miami, where Nixon was nominated, and the Democrats in Chicago, where the anti-war protests outside became the story. The result is the most vivid writing in this list and the least objective, with Mailer as a character in his own reporting. Read it for what a convention felt like in the year the old way of choosing nominees blew up, rather than for strategy. It is also the shortest way into 1968 if the longer books feel like too much.