In a series of evocative though uneven essays, Brinkley
(History/Columbia Univ.) ponders the fate of liberalism. Brinkley
is both a historian of liberalism and a liberal historian; this
dual role brings a tension to these writings. There is a sense of
loss for the post-WW II era of liberalism's optimistic dominance,
combined with a sober analysis of why this dominance did not - and
perhaps could not - last. The early essays on the emergence of
modern American liberalism from the experiences of the New Deal and
WW II are perhaps the best in scholarly terms, for they review and
somewhat extend Brinkley's earlier work in this area (New Deal
Liberalism in Recession and War, 1995). Liberalism emerged after WW
II as an ideology that viewed government as the "compensatory
state." The state would not so much regulate what was once thought
to be a deeply flawed capitalism, but, rather, insure its
continuation through Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies and an
expanded welfare system. Spurred on to produce by the state,
capitalism would do so, producing above all else "full employment."
With the economic question settled, liberalism could, if at times
tentatively and half-heartedly, move on to "solving" the great
social issues of the day, such as civil rights. As these social
problems proved more intransigent than first thought, the largely
imagined liberal "consensus" faced strong challenges - first from
the (New) Left and then from a resurgent Right. As the economy
faltered and the New Left faded, the Right took center stage, an
unimaginable outcome 30 years ago, when historians had by and large
consigned the Right to a marginal place in US politics. There is
little thematic unity among the essays, and their quality varies;
Brinkley is superficial and simply wrong-headed on the New Left,
brilliant on the contemporary Right. Overall, however, this volume
offers much to help us understand the cynicism and restricted
vision distinguishing politics today. (Kirkus Reviews)
How did liberalism, the great political tradition that from the New
Deal to the 1960s seemed to dominate American politics, fall from
favor so far and so fast? In this history of liberalism since the
1930s, a distinguished historian offers an eloquent account of
postwar liberalism, where it came from, where it has gone, and why.
The book supplies a crucial chapter in the history of
twentieth-century American politics as well as a valuable and clear
perspective on the state of our nation's politics today. Liberalism
and Its Discontents moves from a penetrating interpretation of
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal to an analysis of the
profound and frequently corrosive economic, social, and cultural
changes that have undermined the liberal tradition. The book moves
beyond an examination of the internal weaknesses of liberalism and
the broad social and economic forces it faced to consider the role
of alternative political traditions in liberalism's downfall. What
emerges is a picture of a dominant political tradition far less
uniform and stable--and far more complex and contested--than has
been argued. The author offers as well a masterly assessment of how
some of the leading historians of the postwar era explained (or
failed to explain) liberalism and other political ideologies in the
last half-century. He also makes clear how historical
interpretation was itself a reflection of liberal assumptions that
began to collapse more quickly and completely than almost any
scholar could have imagined a generation ago. As both political
history and a critique of that history, Liberalism and Its
Discontents, based on extraordinary essays written over the last
decade, leads to a new understanding of the shaping of modern
America.
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