In a book that William E. Leuchtenburg, writing in the Atlantic, called "a work of considerable power," Allen Matusow documents the rise and fall of 1960s liberalism. He offers deft treatments of the major topics--anticommunism, civil rights, Great Society programs, the counterculture--making the most, throughout, of his subject's tremendous narrative potential. Matusow's preface to the new edition explains the sometimes critical tone of his study. The Unraveling of America, he says, "was intended as a cautionary tale for liberals in the hope that when their hour struck again, they might perhaps be fortified against past error. Now that they have another chance, a look back at the 1960s might serve them well."
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"With The Unraveling of America, Allen Matusow has produced what all historians--indeed, all authors--hope for and almost always fail to achieve: an enduring classic that can be read with equal profit a generation after its initial publication; a measured, sympathetic, and scholarly work in all the best senses of those words." --Eric Alterman, author of Why We're Liberals
"Matusow offers a superb look at the people who propelled the liberal era. . . . The narration is enormously readable." --Susan Lee, Business Week
"Deeply researched and clearly written, this work should figure as a standard study of a watershed movement in American public life for some time to come." --Library Journal
"Matusow offers a superb look at the people who propelled the liberal era. . . . The narration is enormously readable." --Susan Lee, Business Week
"Deeply researched and clearly written, this work should figure as a standard study of a watershed movement in American public life for some time to come." --Library Journal
About the Author
Allen J. Matusow is the W. G. Twyman Professor of History at Rice University. He is the author of Nixon's Economy: Boom, Busts, Dollars, and Votes and Farm Policies and Politics in the Truman Years.
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9 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By "rubindavid"
Format:Paperback
A very good review of the most turbulent decade in the 20th Century. Matusow encapsulates all of the major policy areas that the government dealt with, showing successes and failures as well as his analysis of the situation. For the book's second part, he writes about the left's reactions to these moves and how the various radical groups took certain aspects and focused their discontent upon them. Overall, well-written, very readable, and gives enough detail to satisfy most basic questions the reader might have regarding the issues he covers.
13 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Reading this book about the sixties is like listening to the Beatles catalog from beginning to end; it starts out nice and sunny in the beginning and keeps getting stranger and more drugsy towards the end.
Beginning with the Kennedy Camelot era, liberalism was defined as a moderate corporate liberalism that worked with the establishment to make reforms. Corporations were considered basically good by liberals because they produced wealth for most people. The blacks, however, had 51% of the wealth of white people and were largely shut out from the economic and political mainstream. Civil rights legislation began to develop during the Kennedy years and Kennedy responded in the typically foxy way of politicians trying to please two opposing camps so as to get re-elected.
After Kennedy died, Johnson passed the civil rights legislation and it seemed like liberalism's greatest triumph of the decade. Johnson presided over the war on poverty, a program that he tried to make sure did not upset those who were in power by giving more power to poor people to make decisions about how they should get out of poverty. Any attempts to give power to the people were eventually worn down by the inertia of bureaucracy. The author Allen Matusow seems to have favored some form of radical wealth redistribution, instead of the conventional bureaucratic programs.
There is also some discussion about economic policy of those years in the book--the mundane but important issues about how much to tax, how much to spend, how to avoid economic slumps or even collapses, and whether to listen to the economist Keynes or to Friedman.
The rest of the book is an engrossing account of people going crazy with drugs, violence, sex, music, and insurrections.... Read more ›
Beginning with the Kennedy Camelot era, liberalism was defined as a moderate corporate liberalism that worked with the establishment to make reforms. Corporations were considered basically good by liberals because they produced wealth for most people. The blacks, however, had 51% of the wealth of white people and were largely shut out from the economic and political mainstream. Civil rights legislation began to develop during the Kennedy years and Kennedy responded in the typically foxy way of politicians trying to please two opposing camps so as to get re-elected.
After Kennedy died, Johnson passed the civil rights legislation and it seemed like liberalism's greatest triumph of the decade. Johnson presided over the war on poverty, a program that he tried to make sure did not upset those who were in power by giving more power to poor people to make decisions about how they should get out of poverty. Any attempts to give power to the people were eventually worn down by the inertia of bureaucracy. The author Allen Matusow seems to have favored some form of radical wealth redistribution, instead of the conventional bureaucratic programs.
There is also some discussion about economic policy of those years in the book--the mundane but important issues about how much to tax, how much to spend, how to avoid economic slumps or even collapses, and whether to listen to the economist Keynes or to Friedman.
The rest of the book is an engrossing account of people going crazy with drugs, violence, sex, music, and insurrections.... Read more ›
9 of 52 people found the following review helpful
By will
Format:Paperback
The "unraveling of america" was by far the most illrepresented mind jarble i have ever read. The authors uncanny ability to misconstrue the facts dealing with the Great Society was so incrediable it actually made me laugh out loud in mid sentence. For all of you considering to by this book my best advise would be to instead purchase a copy of charles murray's book "losing ground".
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