Sean Wilentz: Praised by Kevin Phillips for tackling The Age of Reagan
[Kevin Phillips is the author, most recently, of "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism."]
Despite its heft, this book is too short. That is because the subject matter -- U.S. political history -- is so sweeping and the period dealt with -- nearly four decades -- is so long.
The title of Sean Wilentz's book grandly proclaims 1974 to 2008 as the Age of Reagan. But he notes right away that, absent Watergate, the country's late-20th-century move to the right could have been the Age of Nixon. His extension of the Reagan era through 2008 is also debatable, and his coverage of the George W. Bush years is necessarily incomplete, a limitation he acknowledges.
So this is not a book for the ages. It includes a persistent anti-Republican tenor, which an Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (to whom the book is dedicated) would not have indulged, despite having more or less similar feelings. Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, has made no secret of his political sympathies: He has actively supported Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy and accused Barack Obama of running a "deeply dishonest" primary campaign. Two years ago, he argued in an article for Rolling Stone that the current President Bush is "in serious contention" for the title of worst president in history. Reading The Age of Reagan, one wonders whether his singular praise for Bill Clinton's presidency is principally the judgment of a historian or of a party activist.
Nevertheless, Wilentz deserves kudos for biting off a challenge that few historians would have dared to undertake. All too many U.S. political chronicles have been written by specialists who present events in four- or eight-year segments minimally encumbered by a larger economic, political or historical context. By contrast, Wilentz goes for sweep, and in a number of ways achieves it.
He is correct, for example, that although a major trend to the right in U.S. national politics began in the 1960s, Democratic leaders time after time found some reason for perceiving an ongoing or restored liberal dominance -- in 1974, in 1982, in 1986-88 and at both the beginning and conclusion of the Clinton era. Reagan was the most successful Republican president of the 1960-2008 period, which can reasonably support naming the larger era after him. Most leaders on the right regard the man as their great hero, and his era -- the first term, in particular -- as the conservative equivalent of Camelot.
Wilentz is also reasonably correct when he says the unfolding conservative zeitgeist of late-20th-century America produced a string of excesses from Watergate and Vietnam down to the George W. Bush years.
On the other hand, by formally beginning his narrative in 1974, he manages to avoid any serious analysis of the three-tiered Democratic failure under Lyndon Johnson -- a bungled war, unleashed inflation and rioting cities -- or the debacle of the presidential nomination and defeat of George McGovern in 1972, which split the Democratic party like a ripe melon.....
Read entire article at Kevin Phillips in the WaPo review of Wilentz's new book, The Age of Reagan
Despite its heft, this book is too short. That is because the subject matter -- U.S. political history -- is so sweeping and the period dealt with -- nearly four decades -- is so long.
The title of Sean Wilentz's book grandly proclaims 1974 to 2008 as the Age of Reagan. But he notes right away that, absent Watergate, the country's late-20th-century move to the right could have been the Age of Nixon. His extension of the Reagan era through 2008 is also debatable, and his coverage of the George W. Bush years is necessarily incomplete, a limitation he acknowledges.
So this is not a book for the ages. It includes a persistent anti-Republican tenor, which an Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (to whom the book is dedicated) would not have indulged, despite having more or less similar feelings. Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, has made no secret of his political sympathies: He has actively supported Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy and accused Barack Obama of running a "deeply dishonest" primary campaign. Two years ago, he argued in an article for Rolling Stone that the current President Bush is "in serious contention" for the title of worst president in history. Reading The Age of Reagan, one wonders whether his singular praise for Bill Clinton's presidency is principally the judgment of a historian or of a party activist.
Nevertheless, Wilentz deserves kudos for biting off a challenge that few historians would have dared to undertake. All too many U.S. political chronicles have been written by specialists who present events in four- or eight-year segments minimally encumbered by a larger economic, political or historical context. By contrast, Wilentz goes for sweep, and in a number of ways achieves it.
He is correct, for example, that although a major trend to the right in U.S. national politics began in the 1960s, Democratic leaders time after time found some reason for perceiving an ongoing or restored liberal dominance -- in 1974, in 1982, in 1986-88 and at both the beginning and conclusion of the Clinton era. Reagan was the most successful Republican president of the 1960-2008 period, which can reasonably support naming the larger era after him. Most leaders on the right regard the man as their great hero, and his era -- the first term, in particular -- as the conservative equivalent of Camelot.
Wilentz is also reasonably correct when he says the unfolding conservative zeitgeist of late-20th-century America produced a string of excesses from Watergate and Vietnam down to the George W. Bush years.
On the other hand, by formally beginning his narrative in 1974, he manages to avoid any serious analysis of the three-tiered Democratic failure under Lyndon Johnson -- a bungled war, unleashed inflation and rioting cities -- or the debacle of the presidential nomination and defeat of George McGovern in 1972, which split the Democratic party like a ripe melon.....