Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics [Paperback]

Thomas B. Edsall (Author), Mary D. Edsall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1992

The rise of the presidential wing of the Republican party over the past generation has been driven by overlapping issues of race and taxes. The Republicans have capitalized on these two issues, capturing the White House in five of the last six elections. In a steady evolutionary process, race and taxes came to interact with such domestic issues as welfare policy and minority quota hiring. The author suggests that, although Clinton managed to win in 1992, he leads a Democratic Party that is weakened, fragmented and unsure of itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a blunt, on-target analysis of the disintegration of the liberal coalition, Washington Post reporter Edsall, writing with his wife, charges that the Republican Party since 1964 has capitalized on issues of race and taxing, pitting proponents of meritocracy against advocates of special preference. These issues, the authors point out, now intersect in the minds of the electorate with a range of domestic controversies, from drug enforcement to suburban zoning practices. The Edsalls urge Democrats to learn from voter rejection and to engage in constructive, open discussion of such problems as soaring urban-ghetto crime and illegitimacy. In order to tackle the crises of poverty, race and educational reform, they insist, both parties require a "wrenching alteration of habit, strategy, and worldview." However, the book's scorecard of the last seven presidential elections is geared more to policymakers, scholars and activists than to general readers.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

For readers who wonder why Democratic coalitions have failed to retain control of the White House in recent elections, the Edsalls show how race, the civil rights decisions of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and the taxpayers' revolt have made Democratic presidents an endangered or possibly extinct species. They blame the Democrats' problems on their inability to see the impact of the agenda of the 1960s and 1970s on the middle-class and lower-class white vote. In addition, the authors place heavy emphasis on the increased prominence of fundamentalist Christianity in areas like the South, which had been crucial to the Democratic coalition. An excellent foil to Sen. Paul Simon's Once and Future Democrats ( LJ 5/15/82), which argued that to win elections, Democrats should not give up their issues or political soul. Recommended for general readers and informed laypersons. See also Peter Brown's Minority Party ( LJ 8/91)--Ed.
- Frank Kessler, Missouri Western State Coll., St. Joseph
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393309037
• ISBN-13: 978-0393309034
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #605,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Byrne Edsall is an online columnist for the New York Times and a correspondent for The New Republic. He holds the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at Columbia University. He joined the full-time faculty at Columbia in 2006 after a twenty-five year career at The Washington Post. During that time, he covered all aspects of national politics, including presidential elections, the House and Senate, lobbying, tax policy, demographic trends, social welfare, and the politics of race and ethnicity.

Edsall served in 2006 as a guest columnist for the print edition of the New York Times. Before he came to the Washington Post he reported for The Baltimore Sun and The Providence Journal. He has covered politics for The National Journal, and has contributed TV and radio commentary to CNN, CSPAN, MSNBC, PBS, FOX, and NPR.

Edsall is the author of five books: The Age of Austerity (2012); Building Red America (2006); Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (2005); Power and Money: Writing About Politics (1988); and The New Politics of Inequality (1984).

He is also the editor of or contributor to a number of other books: Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics, contributor (2006); Varieties of Progressivism in America, contributor, 2004; Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election (2001); Present Discontents, contributor (1997); The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order 1930-1980, contributor, (1989); The Reagan Legacy, (co-editor and contributor) (1988).

Edsall has written extensively for magazines, with articles appearing in American Prospect, The Atlantic Monthly, Civilization, Dissent, Harper's, The Nation, The National Journal, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, the Washington Monthly.

Edsall's 1992 book Chain Reaction was a Pulitzer finalist in general non-fiction. His awards include the Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association, the Bill Pryor Award and the Front Page Award of the Newspaper Guild, a yearlong fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and several Media Fellowships at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Edsall attended Brown University and received a B.A. from Boston University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 20 years later, still timely., April 10, 2010

By 

W. Tuohy (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (Paperback)

I am more drawn to policy than to politics (political strategies and tactics, etc). Hence, although I both studied and taught political science/government, and later worked in government (including 10 years with a congressman), I paid little attention to the "politics" of government. This book (see the outstanding summary in Chapter 1) has been a real eye-opener (even when read in 2010).
The book offers invaluable insights into the strategies of the two main parties, and the rhetoric that surrounds them and their campaigns. I found it especially enlightening regarding my own party, the Democrats, who still today rely on various "special interests" (a pejorative applied by Republicans) and fail to perceive or acknowledge the costs (both political and policy) of such dependencies. Want to know more? Read this book. It really helps cut through the rhetoric to the reality.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent explaination of the past and future, February 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (Paperback)

of American politics as we now know them today. After you read this book, you will understand what a republican is and a democrat is. It deeply explains what has happened to the minorities in our country and does make a good arguement how the 1964 Civil Right Act has been the catalyst to the current situation we have today. This book has made me more politically aware then ever before, and aided me in making a more educated decision of where I stand on the political continuim. This is an undervalued book on the market today, and is a great bargain for the knowledge it will give you of contemporary America.

0 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, September 15, 2010

By 

Holly "Holly!" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (Paperback)

Got here on time for class and was a lot cheaper than the fsu bookstore!! Turned around and sold it back to the school and made a profit!!