Inside the Wigwam: Chicago Presidential Conventions 1860-1996.<i> By R. Craig Sautter and Edward M. Burke (Loyola Press: $19.95, paper; 284 pp.)</i>

“Teddy was back . . . back from Africa, back in politics, back in the presidential race, back in Chicago for the 1912 15th Republican National Convention. So was a contingent of his ‘Rough Riders,’ who came dressed in full uniform as either Roosevelt delegates or vocal spectators to see that their man won back his rightful place as president of the United States. . . . He proclaimed to the press that he felt ‘as fit as a bullmoose,’ a label that became his 1912 moniker. . . . Roosevelt delegates stormed into Chicago looking for a fight. ‘Brute Force Feared at Convention’ screamed the headlines . . . 600 police officers armed with billy clubs and five police ambulances surrounded the coliseum. . . .”

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History--you’re about to get an earful as an uncontested incumbent president is renominated at Chicago’s predictable Democratic National Convention later this month. What else will TV have to do except belabor the last convention in Chicago, the violent but telegenic nightmare of 1968? This lively, easy-reading book by college professor Sautter and Chicago Alderman Burke rounds out the story, going back to the beginning--Lincoln--and covers the high and low points of all 24 presidential nominating conventions hosted by the city. Imagine the convention back in 1864 without air conditioning, when the Chicago River ran thick and brown with horse manure and sludge? Those were the days, eh?