The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics / Edition 2

by Dan T. Carter

Overview

Combining biography with regional and national history, Dan T. Carter chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of George Wallace, a populist who abandoned his ideals to become a national symbol of racism, and later begged for forgiveness. In The Politics of Rage, Carter argues persuasively that the four-time Alabama governor and four-time presidential candidate helped to establish the conservative political movement that put Ronald Reagan in the White House in 1980 and gave Newt Gingrich and the Republicans control of Congress in 1994. In this second edition, Carter updates Wallace’s story with a look at the politician’s death and the nation’s reaction to it and gives a summary of his own sense of the legacy of “the most important loser in twentieth-century American politics.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807125977
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2000
Edition description:	second edition
Pages:	600
Sales rank:	401,010
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Dan T. Carter, Educational Foundation Professor of History Emeritus at the University of South Carolina and former president of the Southern Historical Association, is the author of Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South, winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History; From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963–1994; and When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, winner of the Avery O. Craven Award.

Editorial Reviews

Carter’s life of Wallace is, by long odds, the finest of those written about the Alabamian- who-would-be-president; indeed, it is one of the finest political biographies of this or any other year. . . . A superb social and political history of Alabama and the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Carter has captured the essence . . . in an easily readable, remarkably insightful biography of both Wallace and ‘Wallaceism,’ recreating how the man and his movement ‘to stand up for America’ reshaped the language and limits of today’s American political system.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Carter builds a compelling, well-documented argument to the effect that Wallace’s presence catalyzed the emergence in the late 1960s of a ‘New American Majority on the foundation of the conservative South.’ . . . A stimulating political biography, solidly researched and vividly presented.

New York Times

Carter’s life of Wallace is, by long odds, the finest of those written about the Alabamian- who-would-be-president; indeed, it is one of the finest political biographies of this or any other year. . . . A superb social and political history of Alabama and the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Despite the title, this book is mainly an interpretive biography of former Alabama governor Wallace, with few revelations but more of a skeptical edge than Stephan Lesher's recent authorized bio, George Wallace: American Populist. (This book argues, contra Lesher, that Wallace did in fact vow not to be ``out-niggered.'') A history professor at Emory University, Carter (Scottsboro) has produced a detailed and readable account of Wallace-``the most influential loser in twentieth-century American politics''-as political animal, driven by ambition far more than by ideology, with a disarmingly folksy personal style. On the wrong side in so many civil rights-era clashes, from Bull Connor's brutality in Birmingham to the admitting of black students to the state university, Wallace nonetheless tapped the ``Southernization'' of suburban and ethnic white America, thereby fueling his two presidential bids. Though his crippling in a 1972 assassination attempt ended his political career, Wallace, as the author states in a coda, anticipated ``the conservative groundswell that transformed American politics in the 1980s.'' (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Historian Carter's biography of the former Alabama governor and presidential candidate emphasizes Wallace's ability to exploit white racism and social conservatism to further his political career. It contends that he gave voice to themes that were to be used effectively by Republican politicians in their electoral victories of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Carter concludes that Wallace was the "most influential loser in twentieth century American politics." Another recent biographer, Stephen Lesher (George Wallace: American Populist, LJ 3/1/94), attributes to him an even wider influence-one affecting liberal and conservative politicians of both major parties. Carter's work has the more complete account of Wallace's administrations as governor and of his political campaigns, while Lesher's biography offers more insight into Wallace as a person. Academic libraries should have both volumes. For other collections, either would be an acceptable choice.-Thomas H. Ferrell, Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette

Library Journal