A Progressive History Of American Democracy Since 1945

A Progressive History of American Democracy Since 1945: American Dreams, Hard Realities offers a social, political, and cultural history of the United States since World War II. Unpacking a period of profound transformation unprecedented in the national experience, this book takes a synthetic approach to the history of the 1940s to the present day. It examines how Americans descended from a mid-century apogee of boundless expectations to the unsettling premise that our contemporary historical moment is fraught with a sense of crisis and national failure. The book’s narrative explores the question of decline and more importantly, how the history of this transformation can point the way toward a recovery of shared national values. Chris J. Magoc also gives extensive treatments to the following: Grassroots movements that have expanded the meaning of American democracy, from the 1950s human rights struggle in the South to contemporary movements to confront systemic racism and the existential crisis of climate change. The resilience of American democracy in the face of antidemocratic forces. The impacts of a decades-long economic transformation. The consequences of America’s expanding global military footprint and national security state. Fracturing of a nation once held together by a post-war liberal consensus and broadly shared societal goals to an America facing an attack from within on empirical truth and democracy itself. This book will be of interest to students of modern U.S. history, social history, and American Studies, and general readers interested in recent U.S. history.

DEMOCRATIC EMPIRE DEMOCRATIC EMPIRE The United States Since 1945 Democracy and empire often seem like competing, even opposing, concepts. And yet, since the end of World War II, the United States has integrated elements of both in the process of becoming a dominant global power. Democratic Empire: The United States Since 1945 explores the way democracy and empire have converged and been challenged both at home and abroad, surveying the nation’s recent cultural, political and economic history. This account pays particular attention to mass media, the fine arts, and intellectual currents in the era of the American Dream. Concise and engagingly written, Democratic Empire presents a unique analysis of US history since 1945 and the egalitarian and imperial forces that have shaped contemporary America.

Led by Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party made the 1912 campaign a passionate contest for the soul of the American people. Promoting an ambitious program of economic, social, and political reform-"New Nationalism"-that posed profound challenges to constitutional government, TR and his Progressive supporters provoked an extraordinary debate about the future of the country. Sidney Milkis revisits this emotionally charged contest to show how a party seemingly consumed by its leader's ambition dominated the election and left an enduring legacy that set in motion the rise of mass democracy and the expansion of national administrative power. Milkis depicts the Progressive Party as a collective enterprise of activists, spearheaded by TR, who pursued a program of reform dedicated to direct democracy and social justice and a balance between rights and civic duty. These reformers hoped to create a new concept of citizenship that would fulfill the lofty aspirations of "we the people" in a quest for a "more perfect union"-a quest hampered by fierce infighting over civil rights and antitrust policy. Milkis shows that the Progressive campaign aroused not just an important debate over reforms but also a battle for the very meaning of Progressivism. He describes how Roosevelt gave focus to the party with his dedication to "pure democracy"-even shoehorning judicial recall into his professed "true conservative" stance. Although this pledge to make the American people "masters of their Constitution" provoked considerable controversy, Milkis contends that the Progressives were not all that far removed from the more nationally minded of the Founders. As Milkis reveals, the party's faith in a more plebiscitary form of democracy would ultimately rob it of the very organization it needed in order to survive after Roosevelt. Yet the Progressive Party's program of social reform and "direct democracy" has reverberated through American politics-especially in 2008, with Barack Obama appealing to similar instincts. By probing the deep historical roots of contemporary developments in American politics, his book shows that Progressivism continues to shape American politics a century later.

In May of 1919, women from around the world gathered in Zurich, Switzerland, and proclaimed, "We dedicate ourselves to peace!" Just months after the end of World War I, the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom--a group led by American progressive Jane Addams and comprising veteran campaigners for social reform--knew that a peaceful world was essential to their ongoing quest for social and economic justice. Alan Dawley tells the story of American progressives during the decade spanning World War I and its aftermath. He shows how they laid the foundation for progressive internationalism in their efforts to improve the world both at home and abroad. Unlike other accounts of the progressive movement--and of American politics in general--this book fuses social and international history. Dawley shows how interventions in Latin America and Europe affected domestic plans for social reform and civic engagement, and he depicts internal battles among progressives between unabashed imperialists like Theodore Roosevelt and their implacable opponents like Robert La Follette. He draws a contrast between Woodrow Wilson's use of force in exporting American ideals and Addams's more cosmopolitan pursuit of economic justice and world peace. In discussing the debate over the League of Nations within the context of turbulent domestic affairs, Dawley brings keen insight into that complicated moment in American history. In striking and original ways, Dawley brings together domestic and world affairs to argue that American progressivism cannot be understood apart from its international context. Focusing on world-historical events of empire, revolution, war, and peace, he shows how American reformers invented a new politics built around progressive internationalism. Changing the World retrieves the progressive tradition in American politics and makes it available to contemporary debates. The book speaks to anyone seeking to be both a good citizen within the nation and a good citizen of today's troubled world.

Now in its second edition, America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1917 provides a readable, analytical narrative of the emergence, influence, and decline of the spirit of progressive reform that animated American politics and culture around the turn of the twentieth century. Covering the turbulent 1890s to the American entry into World War I, the text examines the political, social, and cultural events of a period which set the agenda for American public life during the remainder of the twentieth century. This new edition places progressivism in a transatlantic context and gives more attention to voices outside the mainstream of party politics. Key features include: A clear account of the continuing debate in the United States over the role of government, citizenship, and the pursuit of social justice A full examination of the impact of reform on women and minorities A rich selection of documents that allow the historical actors to communicate with today’s readers An extensive, updated bibliography providing a valuable guide to additional reading and research Based on the most recent scholarship and written to be read by students, this book will be of interest to students of American History and Political History.

The Progressives offers comprehensive coverage of the origins, evolution, and notable events that came to define the pivotal period of American history known as the Progressive Era. Offers a rich, in-depth analysis of who the progressives were and the process through which they identified and attacked social, economic, and political injustices Features an up-to-date synthesis of the literature of the field including comprehensive treatment of the role of women in the Progressive Movement Considers the movement's enduring impact – and how its vision for a better society became transfixed in the American social consciousness and helped to create the modern welfare state Part of the well-respected American History series Integrates themes of class, race, ethnicity, and gender throughout, offering a concise and engaging account of a fascinating era in U.S. history that forever changed the relationship between a democratic government and its citizens

In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty promised an array of federal programs to assist working-class families. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan declared the GOP the party of "family values" and promised to keep government out of Americans' lives. Again and again, historians have sought to explain the nation's profound political realignment from the 1960s to the 2000s, five decades that witnessed the fracturing of liberalism and the rise of the conservative right. The award-winning historian Robert O. Self is the first to argue that the separate threads of that realignment—from civil rights to women's rights, from the antiwar movement to Nixon's "silent majority," from the abortion wars to gay marriage, from the welfare state to neoliberal economic policies—all ran through the politicized American family. Based on an astonishing range of sources, All in the Family rethinks an entire era. Self opens his narrative with the Great Society and its assumption of a white, patriotic, heterosexual man at the head of each family. Soon enough, civil rights activists, feminists, and gay rights activists, animated by broader visions of citizenship, began to fight for equal rights, protections, and opportunities. Led by Pauli Murray, Gloria Steinem, Harvey Milk, and Shirley Chisholm, among many others, they achieved lasting successes, including Roe v. Wade, antidiscrimination protections in the workplace, and a more inclusive idea of the American family. Yet the establishment of new rights and the visibility of alternative families provoked, beginning in the 1970s, a furious conservative backlash. Politicians and activists on the right, most notably George Wallace, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Bryant, and Jerry Falwell, built a political movement based on the perceived moral threat to the traditional family. Self writes that "family values" conservatives in fact "paved the way" for fiscal conservatives, who shared a belief in liberalism's invasiveness but lacked a populist message. Reagan's presidency united the two constituencies, which remain, even in these tumultuous times, the base of the Republican Party. All in the Family, an erudite, passionate, and persuasive explanation of our current political situation and how we arrived in it, will allow us to think anew about the last fifty years of American politics.