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In a chronicle of three generations of three working-class families, award-winning journalist Samuel G. Freedman tells the human story of the political transformation of twentieth-century America - the rise and fall of FDR's New Deal coalition and its displacement by the new conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. This is the single most important political phenomenon of our times.
Freedman has selected three families who are at once singular and broadly representative. They are families who reached this country just as the century was beginning and struggled as blacksmiths and domestics and butchers and plumbers to gain a foothold. They are families who acted on their beliefs not only by voting but also by organizing neighborhoods and leading union chapters, canvassing precincts and watching polls and marching in torch-light parades.
These families were pillars of the Democratic coalition that largely led America from 1932 until 1968 - community activists, trade unionists, machine politicians, with loyalties based on religion, ethnicity, and social class. These families equally embody the forces that shifted the majority into Republican hands for all but four years between 1968 and 1992 - grievances about taxes, crime, and reverse discrimination; the rise of suburbia and a shift to a new political machine based on private financing for development rather than public works. They are individuals who shifted from New Deal Democrats to Reagan Republicans to a mixture of GOP stalwarts, hesitant Clinton backers, and political dropouts.
And in so doing, they carried with them a nation's destiny. The Inheritance will change our understanding of how and why America selects its leaders.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
History, Politics and government, Case studies, Working class families, Party affiliation, Working class, Political activity, New York Times reviewed, Conservatism, Political parties, united states, United states, politics and government, 20th century, United states, history, 20th century, United states, social conditions, 1945-Places
United StatesTimes
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The INHERITANCE: HOW THREE FAMILIES AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL MAJORITY MOVED FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
March 25, 1998, Simon & Schuster
Paperback
in English
0684835363 9780684835365
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2
The INHERITANCE: How Three Families and America Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond
1996-09-10, Simon and Schuster
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3
The inheritance: how three families and America moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and beyond
1996, Simon & Schuster
in English
0684811162 9780684811161
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WorldCat
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Book Details
First Sentence
"IN THE WANING DAYS OF JANUARY 1918, SILVIO BURIGO carried an autograph book to his classroom at Public School 85 in the Italian slum of East Harlem."
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