The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics

"One of the richest, most nuanced studies of American politics and voting behavior in recent years. . . . Timely and important."—Sol Stern, New York Newsday

Three volatile issues—race, rights, and taxes—drive American politics today. They have come to intersect with an entire range of domestic issues, from welfare policy to suburban zoning practices. In an explosive chain reaction, a new conservative voting majority has replaced the once-dominant Democratic presidential coalition, and a new polarization has pitted major segments of society against one another.

How did this massive power shift occur? Thomas Byrne Edsall of the Washington Post and Mary D. Edsall provide answers in this compelling analysis, cited by Newsweek as "[one of] the books that shape[d] the debate" in the 1992 presidential campaign.

For this edition, Mr. Edsall has added an Afterword—as up to date as the shocking Los Angeles riots—on emerging trends in the politics of race, as mirrored in the attack of the Republican party on what its spokesmen characterize as "the failed social programs of the 1960s and 1970s."

"Brilliantly illuminates the Democratic Party's mistakes and its problems. . . . Should be read by anyone with an interest in American politics. . . . A remarkably candid and insightful account of the Democrats' steady decline. . . . In the United States today, race—not class—dominates the domestic political agenda. And the price for the once-proud Democratic Party, as the Edsalls so superbly demonstrate, has been division, desertion and defeat."—David Oshinsky, New York Times Book Review