More

More PDF Author: Robert M. Collins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195348486
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
James Carville famously reminded Bill Clinton throughout 1992 that "it's the economy, stupid." Yet, for the last forty years, historians of modern America have ignored the economy to focus on cultural, social, and political themes, from the birth of modern feminism to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now a scholar has stepped forward to place the economy back in its rightful place, at the center of his historical narrative. In More, Robert M. Collins reexamines the history of the United States from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, focusing on the federal government's determined pursuit of economic growth. After tracing the emergence of growth as a priority during FDR's presidency, Collins explores the record of successive administrations, highlighting both their success in fostering growth and its partisan uses. Collins reveals that the obsession with growth appears not only as a matter of policy, but as an expression of Cold War ideology--both a means to pay for the arms build-up and proof of the superiority of the United States' market economy. But under Johnson, this enthusiasm sparked a crisis: spending on Vietnam unleashed runaway inflation, while the nation struggled with the moral consequences of its prosperity, reflected in books such as John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. More continues up to the end of the 1990s, as Collins explains the real impact of Reagan's policies and astutely assesses Clinton's "disciplined growthmanship," which combined deficit reduction and a relaxed but watchful monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. Writing with eloquence and analytical clarity, Robert M. Collins offers a startlingly new framework for understanding the history of postwar America.

More

More PDF Author: Robert M. Collins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195348486
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book Here

Book Description
James Carville famously reminded Bill Clinton throughout 1992 that "it's the economy, stupid." Yet, for the last forty years, historians of modern America have ignored the economy to focus on cultural, social, and political themes, from the birth of modern feminism to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now a scholar has stepped forward to place the economy back in its rightful place, at the center of his historical narrative. In More, Robert M. Collins reexamines the history of the United States from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, focusing on the federal government's determined pursuit of economic growth. After tracing the emergence of growth as a priority during FDR's presidency, Collins explores the record of successive administrations, highlighting both their success in fostering growth and its partisan uses. Collins reveals that the obsession with growth appears not only as a matter of policy, but as an expression of Cold War ideology--both a means to pay for the arms build-up and proof of the superiority of the United States' market economy. But under Johnson, this enthusiasm sparked a crisis: spending on Vietnam unleashed runaway inflation, while the nation struggled with the moral consequences of its prosperity, reflected in books such as John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. More continues up to the end of the 1990s, as Collins explains the real impact of Reagan's policies and astutely assesses Clinton's "disciplined growthmanship," which combined deficit reduction and a relaxed but watchful monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. Writing with eloquence and analytical clarity, Robert M. Collins offers a startlingly new framework for understanding the history of postwar America.

The American Political Economy

The American Political Economy PDF Author: Douglas A. HIBBS
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674038630
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Here is the most comprehensive and authoritative work to date on relationships between the economy and politics in the years from Eisenhower through Reagan. Extending and deepening his earlier work, which had major impact in both political science and economics, Hibbs traces the patterns in and sources of postwar growth, unemployment, and inflation. He identifies which groups win and lose from inflations and recessions. He also shows how voters' perceptions and reactions to economic events affect the electoral fortunes of political parties and presidents. Hibbs's analyses demonstrate that political officials in a democratic society ignore the economic interests and demands of their constituents at their peril, because episodes of prosperity and austerity frequently have critical influence on voters' behavior at the polls. The consequences of Eisenhower's last recession, of Ford's unwillingness to stimulate the economy, of Carter's stalled recovery were electorally fatal, whereas Johnson's, Nixon's, and Reagan's successes in presiding over rising employment and real incomes helped win elections. The book develops a major theory of macroeconomic policy action that explains why priority is given to growth, unemployment, inflation, and income distribution shifts with changes in partisan control of the White House. The analysis shows how such policy priorities conform to the underlying economic interests and preferences of the governing party's core political supporters. Throughout the study Hibbs is careful to take account of domestic institutional arrangements and international economic events that constrain domestic policy effectiveness and influence domestic economic outcomes. Hibbs's interdisciplinary approach yields more rigorous and more persuasive characterizations of the American political economy than either purely economic, apolitical analyses or purely partisan, politicized accounts. His book provides a useful benchmark for the advocacy of new policies for the 1990s--a handy volume for politicians and their staffs, as well as for students and teachers of politics and economics.

Shattered Consensus

Shattered Consensus PDF Author: James Piereson
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594036713
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
"Piereson [posits that there is an] inevitable political turmoil that will overtake the United States in the next decade as a consequence of economic stagnation, the unsustainable growth of government, and the exhaustion of postwar arrangements that formerly underpinned American prosperity and power. The challenges of public debt, the retirement of the baby boom generation, and slow economic growth have reached a point where they require profound changes in the role of government in American life"--Dust jacket flap.

A Consumers' Republic

A Consumers' Republic PDF Author: Lizabeth Cohen
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307555364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
In this signal work of history, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lizabeth Cohen shows how the pursuit of prosperity after World War II fueled our pervasive consumer mentality and transformed American life. Trumpeted as a means to promote the general welfare, mass consumption quickly outgrew its economic objectives and became synonymous with patriotism, social equality, and the American Dream. Material goods came to embody the promise of America, and the power of consumers to purchase everything from vacuum cleaners to convertibles gave rise to the power of citizens to purchase political influence and effect social change. Yet despite undeniable successes and unprecedented affluence, mass consumption also fostered economic inequality and the fracturing of society along gender, class, and racial lines. In charting the complex legacy of our “Consumers’ Republic” Lizabeth Cohen has written a bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book.

The Liberal Consensus Reconsidered

The Liberal Consensus Reconsidered PDF Author: Robert Mason
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813064444
Category : Liberalism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Here, leading scholars-including Hodgson himself-confront the longstanding theory that a liberal consensus shaped the United States after World War II. The essays draw on fresh research to examine how the consensus related to key policy areas, how it was viewed by different factions and groups, what its limitations were, and why it fell apart in the late 1960s.

An Extraordinary Time

An Extraordinary Time PDF Author: Marc Levinson
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096565
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The decades after World War II were a golden age across much of the world. It was a time of economic miracles, an era when steady jobs were easy to find and families could see their living standards improving year after year. And then, around 1973, the good times vanished. The world economy slumped badly, then settled into the slow, erratic growth that had been the norm before the war. The result was an era of anxiety, uncertainty, and political extremism that we are still grappling with today. In An Extraordinary Time, acclaimed economic historian Marc Levinson describes how the end of the postwar boom reverberated throughout the global economy, bringing energy shortages, financial crises, soaring unemployment, and a gnawing sense of insecurity. Politicians, suddenly unable to deliver the prosperity of years past, railed haplessly against currency speculators, oil sheikhs, and other forces they could not control. From Sweden to Southern California, citizens grew suspicious of their newly ineffective governments and rebelled against the high taxes needed to support social welfare programs enacted when coffers were flush. Almost everywhere, the pendulum swung to the right, bringing politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to power. But their promise that deregulation, privatization, lower tax rates, and smaller government would restore economic security and robust growth proved unfounded. Although the guiding hand of the state could no longer deliver the steady economic performance the public had come to expect, free-market policies were equally unable to do so. The golden age would not come back again. A sweeping reappraisal of the last sixty years of world history, An Extraordinary Time forces us to come to terms with how little control we actually have over the economy.

The Political Economy of Latin America in the Postwar Period

The Political Economy of Latin America in the Postwar Period PDF Author: Laura Randall
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292785992
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
The historic and increasing interdependence of the Latin American and U.S. economies makes an understanding of the political economies of Latin American nations particularly timely and important. After World War II, many nations initially implemented import substituting industrialization policies. Their outcomes, and the shift in policies, are related to the domestic policies and world economic conditions that led to government deficits, inflation, foreign borrowing, debt renegotiation, and renewed emphasis on common markets and other devices to stimulate trade and investment. In The Political Economy of Latin America in the Postwar Period, important policy measures are evaluated, such as indexation of prices and contracts; special provisions for financing the government through the Central Bank; stabilization; and deregulation of the economy. The introduction presents trends in Latin American growth and the factors that influence them. This is followed by parallel studies of the economic development of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru from 1945 to the mid-1990s. Noted experts bring their considerable experience to analyzing the content and impact of the economic theories that guided policymaking and their effects on output, income, and quality of life.

Government and the American Economy

Government and the American Economy PDF Author: Price V. Fishback
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226251292
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
The American economy has provided a level of well-being that has consistently ranked at or near the top of the international ladder. A key source of this success has been widespread participation in political and economic processes. In The Government and the American Economy, leading economic historians chronicle the significance of America’s open-access society and the roles played by government in its unrivaled success story. America’s democratic experiment, the authors show, allowed individuals and interest groups to shape the structure and policies of government, which, in turn, have fostered economic success and innovation by emphasizing private property rights, the rule of law, and protections of individual freedom. In response to new demands for infrastructure, America’s federal structure hastened development by promoting the primacy of states, cities, and national governments. More recently, the economic reach of American government expanded dramatically as the populace accepted stronger limits on its economic freedoms in exchange for the increased security provided by regulation, an expanded welfare state, and a stronger national defense.

American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt

American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt PDF Author: Sean P. Cunningham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107024528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This book analyzes the political culture of the American Sunbelt since the end of World War II. It highlights and explains the Sunbelt's emergence during the second half of the twentieth century as the undisputed geographic epicenter for conservative Republican power in the United States. However, the book also investigates the ongoing nature of political contestation within the postwar Sunbelt, often highlighting the underappreciated persistence of liberal and progressive influences across the region. Sean P. Cunningham argues that the conservative Republican ascendancy that so many have identified as almost synonymous with the rise of the postwar American Sunbelt was hardly an easy, unobstructed victory march. Rather, it was consistently challenged and never foreordained. The history of American politics in the postwar Sunbelt resembles a rollercoaster of partisan and ideological adaptation and transformation.

Politics at Work

Politics at Work PDF Author: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190629894
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Politics at Work documents how and why U.S. employers are increasingly recruiting their own workers into politics-and what such recruitment means for American democracy and public policy.