Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics [Paperback]

Earl Black (Author), Merle Black (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2008

Now with an updated Afterword -- in which the authors show how the 2006 midterm elections and the Democratic takeover of Congress validate their argument about regional divisions and why and how they will dominate the 2008 presidential election -- Divided America tells the biggest story in American politics today: how new regional divisions are tearing the country's politics apart, turning both major parties into minority parties and encouraging angry constituencies to wage increasingly nasty wedge-issue campaigns.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Politics by the numbers is the modus operandi of the Black brothers, twins who teach political science (Earl at Rice University, Merle at Emory University). Having focused on politics in the Southern states in three previous academic collaborations, the Blacks now divide the United States into five regions (South, Northeast, Pacific Coast, Midwest, Mountains/Plains), and explain how and why national electoral politics have become a close contest between two parties, Democrats and Republicans, that cannot claim permanent majority status. Most of the election data they examine comes from presidential elections; their analysis of races for the House of Representatives and the Senate come toward the end and are out of kilter with the results of the November 2006 House and Senate elections. Still, the Blacks' generalizations deserve consideration. They believe the Democrats are quite likely to retain advantages in the Northeast and Pacific Coast regions, while the Republicans are quite likely to win the South and Mountains/Plains regions in the 2008 election. That leaves the Midwest as the swing region. (The Blacks define the Midwest as 10 states, including Kentucky and West Virginia.) Though the book will probably fascinate politics junkies, the emphasis on statistics rather than lively anecdotes means rough going for qualitative rather than quantitative minds. 34 charts and tables. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Recent presidential elections clearly show that the U.S. has no national political consensus. Instead, regional politics are cobbled together to produce a tentative consensus that barely holds until the next election, leaving Democrats and Republicans locked in a power struggle. The Blacks, twin brothers and professors at Emory and Rice, examine how regional differences account for the swings in national politics. Dividing the nation into five regions--Northeast, South, Midwest, Mountains/Plains, and Pacific Coast--the Blacks explore the social and cultural trends of the past 50 years that have shaped the regions and given them their political leanings. They also explore the factors that have contributed to the dominance of Democrats in the Northeast and Pacific Coast, Republican realignment in the Mountains/Plains and the South, and the struggle for both to dominate the Midwest. The Blacks focus on the ethnic and racial, religious and ideological differences within and among the regions that partly account for their political leanings and how those differences will continue to affect national politics for the foreseeable future. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743262077
• ISBN-13: 978-0743262071
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The poor authors, April 9, 2007

By 

John Speer (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics (Hardcover)

They had a great idea for a book on politics beyond the Reign of W, spending the past couple of years assiduously putting together a slew of statistics to back up their professional analysis of current American politics.
Then Karl Rove's brilliant strategy imploded, and the electorate turned on the administration, pretty well across the board, though with some demographics more strongly than others. So ... it's tough to extrapolate the pre-implosion data (pre-2004) to 2008 and beyond.
The book went to press after the 2006 elections, and the authors do mention the results in the Foreward. However, I'm deducting two stars: one because it reads like a college statistics thesis in large part, and another because the data is (to some extent, debateable how much) not relevant for the next political cycle.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good description of one part of a much wider problem, December 10, 2008

By 

Thomas W. Sulcer (Summit, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics (Paperback)

The Black brothers, both professors of political science at different southern universities, have done an excellent job of describing one of America's current ills -- partisanship -- with excellent statistics and research.

They have hit on a major flaw with American democracy and describe it accurately. Politics has become "ideologically charged" and point out that America's "unstable power politics generates relentlessly bitter conflicts over a huge range of domestic and foreign policies and motivates activists in both parties to compete fiercely all the time." I see the venom daily -- activists from both sides cutting at each other's throats without being able to compromise. They write: "the incessant personal attacks mean that especially thick skins are necessary for America's leading politicians." They're right.

They map out partisanship: Democrats controlling the Pacific & Northeast, Republicans controlling the South and Mountain states, with the midwest up for grabs. That partisan forces are evenly balanced means "ferocious competition" as they rightly point out, leading to a "permanently competitive situation." This doesn't bode well for the future of American democracy, which requires tolerance and compromise to function effectively.

Thomas W. Sulcer
author of "The Second Constitution of the United States"
(free on web -- google title above + sulcer)

12 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stats freaks, you know who you are, take a personal day, crunch on., April 14, 2007

By 

Well Read (Twin Cities, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics (Hardcover)

Politics in the U.S. for the past several decades has had the flavor of a pendulum; a slow oscillation driven mostly by indifferent people voicing their disgust with alternate messages. That model has been soundly retired. There are millions of voters, thousands of polling places, hundreds of districts and anyone with a basic knowledge of a spreadsheet program can keep a finger on trends and patterns to a greater extent than the highest paid consultants of just a dozen years ago. The Blacks speak this language; the controlled variable graph cluster.
They divide the country into the South, the Northeast, the Pacific Coast and the Midwest. They examine race, gender, religious affiliation and ethnicity. The patterns they show are stark. The campaigns will know well where to spend their money or they will fail.
The issues have not lost their importance. But the well-staffed candidate will no longer waste a dime of ad money in the wrong districts. Certain places, certain populations present opportunity. The rest of us will just have to see if we can surprise these hired guns and their finely tuned predictions.
Many will complain that the populist notions of participatory democracy have fallen by the wayside; that Tommy Jefferson is spinning in his grave. But it bears pointing out that "participatory" derives from an active verb. Voter turnouts for TV reality shows tower over those of even general elections. Are people truly disaffected with the political experience or just bored? If they are disappointed with the entertainment value of being asked to overthrow their government every November, they'll get no sympathy from candidates and their consultants as they apply the strategies implied by "Divided America."
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