Great Society

In this history, Katz explores the roots of our ambivalence toward welfare and the welfare state, revealing the patterns which have recurred from era to era and which continue to frustrate reformers to this day. From the poorhouse era to the New Deal, from the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare, Katz provides the long perspective so often missing from the debates over "ending welfare as we know it". And this tenth anniversary edition contains an expanded introduction and a new concluding chapter, bringing the story to the present and analyzing the politics that lie behind the welfare reform act of 1996.

Lone Star Rising, the first volume in Robert Dallek's biography of LBJ, was hailed as "a triumphant portrait of Lyndon Johnson as rich and oversized and complex as the nation that shaped him." Now, in the final volume, Dallek takes us through Johnson's tumultuous years in the White House, his unprecedented accomplishments there, and the tragic war that would be his downfall. In these pages Johnson emerges as a character of almost Shakespearean dimensions, a man riddled with contradictions, a man of towering intensity and anguished insecurity, of grandiose ambition and grave self-doubt, a man who was brilliant, crude, intimidating, compassionate, overbearing, driven: "A tornado in pants." Drawing on hundreds of newly released tapes and extensive interviews with those closest to LBJ--including fresh insights from Ladybird and his press secretary Bill Moyers--Dallek takes us behind the scenes to give us a portrait of Johnson that is at once even-handed and completely engrossing. We see Johnson as the visionary leader who worked his will on Congress like no president before or since, enacting a range of crucial legislation, from Medicare, environmental protection, and the establishment of the National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities to the most significant advances in civil rights for black Americans ever achieved. And we see for the first time the depth of Johnson's private anguish as he became increasingly ensnared in Vietnam, a war he did not want to expand and which destroyed his hopes for The Great Society and a second term. Exhaustively researched and gracefully written, Flawed Giant reveals both the greatness and the tangled complexities of one of the most extravagant characters ever to step onto the presidential stage.

In America Divided, Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin provide the definitive history of the 1960s, in a book that tells a compelling tale filled with fresh and persuasive insights. Ranging from the 1950s right up to the debacle of Watergate, Isserman (a noted historian of the Left) and Kazin (a leading specialist in populist movements) not only recount the public and private actions of the era's many powerful political figures, but also shed light on the social, cultural, and grassroots political movements of the decade. Indeed, readers will find a seamless narrative that integrates such events as the Cuban Missile Crisis and Operation Rolling Thunder with the rise of Motown and Bob Dylan, and that blends the impact of Betty Friedan, Martin Luther King, and George Wallace with the role played by organizations ranging from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to the Campus Crusade for Christ. The authors' broad ranging approach offers us the most sophisticated understanding to date of the interaction between key developments of the decade, such as the Vietnam War, the rise and fall of the Great Society, and the conservative revival. And they break new ground in their careful attention to every aspect of the political and cultural spectrum, depicting the 1960s as a decade of right-wing resurgence as much as radical triumph, of Protestant apocalyptic revivalism as much as Roman Catholic liberalism and rising alternative religions. Never before have all sides of the many political, social, and cultural conflicts been so well defined, discussed, and analyzed--all in a swiftly moving narrative. With America Divided, the struggles of the Sixties--and their legacy--are finally clear.