The achievement of American liberalism : the New Deal and its legacies / edited by William H. Chafe.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

No detailed description available for "The Achievement of American Liberalism".

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

With this volume, editor Chafe (history, Duke), a prominent historian of postwar America, honors William Leuchtenburg, perhaps the leading New Deal historian, with a collection of 11 new essays assessing the course of American liberalism from the 1930s to date. Chafe, most recently editor of Remembering Jim Crow, is joined in this effort by an impressive list of contributors, including Alan Brinkley, Alonzo Hamby, Melvin Urofsky, and others. While the chapters are uneven, as is often said of Festschriften, it is not the quality that varies; indeed, the pieces range from good to excellent. Instead, the focus is not sharp, as broad views of traditional topics, such as fine analyses of New Deal reform programs and of Democratic politics, by Brinkley and Hamby, respectively, fail to meld with more narrowly conceived studies, such as those on J. Robert Oppenheimer and on payola in the 1950s music industry. Still, the volume is well worth acquiring by any academic library for the names in the table of contents alone, not to mention the contributions from Chafe himself on the liberal fault lines of race, class, and gender. For academic libraries.-Robert F. Nardini, Chichester, NH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

This book comprises 11 chapters that explore the achievements of the New Deal and the trials of US liberalism since the 1930s. Alan Brinkley sets the tone with the first essay, "The New Deal Experiments." Otis Graham concludes the volume with "Liberalism after the Sixties." In between, various authors explore liberalism's accomplishments in diverse areas. Together, the essays explore significant aspects of the contradictory features and evolving definition of the liberal consensus that affected US society during the decades following WW II. That consensus included the ideas that capitalism was superior to communism, capitalism and democracy were each indispensable to the other, US society had no organic flaws and therefore needed only incremental reform, and Americans were united by anticommunism. A unifying theme is that each essayist benefited from the academic legacy of William E. Leuchtenburg, whose original thinking explored questions about the origins and reform nature of the New Deal and shaped the debate about liberalism for a generation. This book will be useful for those seeking an understanding of US politics over the last decades of the 20th century. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Undergraduate collections and up. J. P. Sanson Louisiana State University at Alexandria