Publisher's Weekly Review
Skocpol's incisive account of the first two years of the Obama presidency's "new New Deal" begins by highlighting contrasts with the original New Deal era. She emphasizes significant contextual differences (economic conditions, media biases, public attitudes toward government) that would have daunted FDR himself, who, unlike Obama, enjoyed bipartisan support at the beginning of his administration. The extraordinary level of partisan obstructionism that Obama faced from the get-go had its origins in long-term trends he was powerless to counter, namely the overlap between ideological and partisan divisions that began after the civil rights revolution. Skocpol (States and Social Revolutions), professor of government at Harvard, credits Obama with an impressive record of policy achievements (comprehensive health reform, student loan reform, and tightened regulation of financial institutions), explores the reasons why these achievements failed to translate into political capital for the Democrats by the time of the midterm elections, and asks us to consider the possibility that the Republican party's plunge toward antigovernment extremism may have more lasting impact than "Obama's hard-fought attempt at a second New Deal." Informed by pathbreaking research on the Tea Party, Skocpol's provocative, original, and lively analysis is supplemented by contributions from Larry M. Bartels, Mickey Edwards, and Suzanne Mettler. Anyone who is passionately concerned about politics and prefers thoughtful discussion to polemic will find this book invaluable. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Choice Review
This concise conversation among scholars and a former member of Congress provides excellent insight into Obama's first years in office. Obama and America's Political Future, the outcome of Skocpol's Alexis de Tocqueville Lecture, includes commentaries on her lecture by Larry Bartels, Mickey Edwards, and Suzanne Mettler. Together, Skocpol's initial lecture, the commentaries, and Skocpol's response to the commentaries provide a detailed account of a number of Obama administration initiatives and the political reactions to them. Each of the contributors provides a slightly different interpretation of the events of Obama's first years in office. Skocpol (Harvard Univ.) argues that perhaps Obama needed to go further, Bartels suggests that Obama went too far, Edwards argues that there may have been some electoral victory exuberance by the Democrats after 2008 and that estimates of the impact of the Tea Party may be overblown, and Mettler agrees to some extent with Skocpol that Obama got little credit because much of the American public saw only small changes to an extant system. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers, undergraduate students, and graduate students. J. Twombly Elmira College
![Cover image for Obama and America's political future. [electronic resource] / Theda Skocpol ; with commentaries by Larry M. Bartels, Mickey Edwards, Suzanne Mettler.](/client/assets/5.1326/ctx//client/images/no_image.png "Cover image for Obama and America's political future. [electronic resource] / Theda Skocpol ; with commentaries by Larry M. Bartels, Mickey Edwards, Suzanne Mettler.")