From the Publisher
The wide-ranging debate over the best means for promoting progressive ends
Whereas conservatives in America today often disagree over which moral and political goods are most urgently in need of conservation, contemporary progressives are principally divided over the means—the kinds of government and citizen action—for achieving the ends around which they unite. Accordingly his book focuses on the debates within the party of progress about how best to increase opportunity in America and to make social and political life more inclusive and equal.
The contributors to this volume bring to their task a wealth of expertise and an array of perspectives. Examining the Old Democrats who arose in the New Deal and gave shape to the modern Democratic Party, the Clinton-era New Democrats who sought to moderate the party’s message, and the future of progressivism in America, they clarify the moral underpinnings and the political implications of the varieties of progressivism in America.
Debate among progressives about the most suitable means for the promotion of progressive ends persists. The book shows that the choice depends upon shifting coalitions; political leadership; developments in culture, economics, demography, and technology; actions and events beyond our borders; and not least engagement with that larger liberalism that undergirds the American constitutional order and so connects the varieties of progressivism to the varieties of conservatism in America.
Peter Berkowitz teaches at George Mason University School of Law and is a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of two books and the editor of several, including the companion to this volume, Varieties of Conservatism in America (Hoover Institution Press, 2004).
Contributors: David Cole, Thomas Byrne Edsall, Franklin Foer, William A. Galston, Jeffrey C. Issac, Ruy Teixeira
