Making Sense of American Liberalism

This collection of thoughtful and timely essays offers refreshing and intelligent new perspectives on postwar American liberalism. Sophisticated yet accessible, Making Sense of American Liberalism challenges popular myths about liberalism in the United States. The volume presents the Democratic Party and liberal reform efforts such as civil rights, feminism, labor, and environmentalism as a more united, more radical force than has been depicted in scholarship and the media emphasizing the decline and disunity of the left. Distinguished contributors assess the problems liberals have confronted in the twentieth century, examine their strategies for reform, and chart the successes and potential for future liberal reform. Contributors are Anthony J. Badger, Jonathan Bell, Lizabeth Cohen, Susan Hartmann, Ella Howard, Bruce Miroff, Nelson Lichtenstein, Doug Rossinow, Timothy Stanley, and Timothy Thurber.

Jonathan Bell is a senior lecturer in the history department at the University of Reading, England, and the author of The Liberal State on Trial: The Cold War and American Politics in the Truman Years. Timothy Stanley is a Leverhulme research fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and the author of Kennedy vs. Carter: The 1980 Battle for the Democratic Party's Soul.