The Newark Frontier: Community Action in the Great Society

To many, Newark seems a profound symbol of postwar liberalism’s failings: an impoverished, deeply divided city where commitments to integration and widespread economic security went up in flames during the 1967 riots. While it’s true that these failings shaped Newark’s postwar landscape and economy, as Mark Krasovic shows, that is far from the whole story.

The Newark Frontier shows how, during the Great Society, urban liberalism adapted and grew, defining itself less by centralized program...