The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama

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The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama (eBook) Pub. Date: 4/12/2012 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
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The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama Pub. Date: 4/12/2012 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

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Overview

The definitive history of American postwar liberalism, told through the lens of those who brought it to life.

Liberalism stands proudly at the center of American politics and culture. Driven by passion for social justice, tempered by respect for the difficulty of change, liberals have struggled to end economic inequality, racial discrimination, and political repression. Liberals have fueled their cause with the promise of American life and visions of national greatness, seeking to transform the White House; the halls of Congress, the courts, the worlds of entertainment, law, media, and the course of public opinion. Bestselling author, journalist, and historian Eric Alterman, together with historian Kevin Mattson, traces the history of liberal ideals through the lives and struggles of fascinating personalities. The Cause tells the remarkable story of politicians, intellectuals, visionaries, activists, and public personalities battling for the heart and soul of the nation.

The first full-scale treatment of postwar liberalism, The Cause offers an epic saga driven by stories of grand aspirations, principled ambitions, tragic flaws, and the ironies of history of the people who fought for America to live up to the highest ideals of its history.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In this ambitious work, journalist Alterman (Kabuki Democracy) and historian Mattson (When America Was Great) present an encyclopedic history of liberalism, a movement devoted to equality, justice, and freedom, and a powerful engine of change in the 20th century. With a huge cast ranging from political to cultural figures as diverse as Reinhold Niebuhr, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Lyndon Johnson, Gloria Steinem, Richard Rorty, Bruce Springsteen, and many, many more, the authors tell the tortured story of the liberal fight for social justice. Against the backdrop of the lives and works of these men and women, they undertake an exhaustive exposition of legislation, election campaigns, foreign policy decisions, theoretical books and journals, and other cultural artifacts. The liberal devotion to rationality leads to the problem of “how to inspire passion for a philosophy that itself distrust passion.” Alterman and Mattson suggest that, in our current era, liberalism has “pledged itself to rationality in a political culture in which anti-intellectualism runs rampant,” and in which the enemies of liberalism are effectively mobilizing populist fear and ignorance. Though the book loses narrative focus due to the slew of mini-biographies spliced throughout, it remains an illuminating history of postwar politics, international relations, culture, and philosophy—all in one scrupulously researched volume. Agent: Tina Bennett, Janklow & Nesbit. (Apr.)

Library Journal

So many books lately on the rise of the Right, but here, finally, is a history of postwar liberalism. Media critic, political columnist (e.g., The Nation), CUNY journalism professor, and best-selling author (e.g., Why We're Liberal), Alterman joins with Ohio University professor Mattson to define liberalism through the individuals who have shaped it over the last decades. Important for current events readers except in really red states.

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Kirkus Reviews

A liberal columnist and a professor examine the zigzag route of liberal politics since the New Deal. Before the book was finished, Mattson (Contemporary History/Ohio Univ.; "What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country, 2009, etc.) left the partnership with the Nation contributor Alterman (Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama, 2011, etc.), who wrote the final draft. A chronicle of liberalism's successes and failures, the text travels the labyrinthine road from the New Deal to the rise (and fall) of unionism, the theorists of the 1940s and '50s (Dean Acheson, George Kennan), the battle against McCarthyism and the failures of Adlai Stevenson, whom Alterman writes helped create the notion of the effete intellectual. The author then charts the rise of the Kennedys, the tragic assassinations of the '60s, civil rights and Lyndon Johnson, Betty Friedan and the feminist movement, the campaign and electoral failures of Eugene McCarthy, McGovern, Carter, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry. Alterman pauses often to visit relevant cultural history--the emergence of influential journals, Mailer's writing, DeVoto's criticism, Elia Kazan's films, Cheever's stories, the various liberal contributions of actor Sidney Poitier, novelist William Styron, filmmaker Oliver Stone and--in a long section--rocker Bruce Springsteen. Alterman points out continually how liberals have often been their own worst enemies--failing to stand up to the violence of the far left in the '60s, fearing being branded "anti-American" in the face of war (Iraq), failing to confront the Tea Party and the ever-more-rightward GOP. Unfortunately, Alterman too often quotes others and only rarely flashes the scimitar wit he displays in the Nation. Thorough and thoughtful, but with dense scholarly foliage that needs pruning.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780670023431
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Publication date: 4/12/2012
Pages: 576
Sales rank: 52,190
Product dimensions: 6.56 (w) x 9.32 (h) x 1.70 (d)

Meet the Author

Eric Alterman

Eric Alterman is Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. A columnist for The Nation, The Forward, and The Daily Best, he is senior fellow of the Center for American Progress, the Nation Institute, and the World Policy Institute. The author of eight previous books, including the national bestseller What Liberal Media?, Alterman is the winner of the George Orwell Award, the Jack London Literary Prize, and the Mirror Award for media criticism. A graduate of Cornell, Yale, and Stanford universities, he lives with his family in Manhattan.

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theflock

Posted April 29, 2012

This is an outstanding must read for those who want to understan

This is an outstanding must read for those who want to understand the American political system and the development of liberal thought in the country.

Eric Alterman, who writes for AlterNet, provides an alternative view of the New Deal, Great Society, and how these views contributed to popular thought about politics and society.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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