All in the Family


Book Description

This text is a synthetic history of the last half of the American century. Self shows how movements on the liberal left that demanded equal rights and greater government protection inadvertently elicited conservative activism that sought to restore the nuclear family under the rubric of 'family values'.




Hubert Humphrey


Book Description

The most authoritative biography of the consummate liberal politician of the second half of the twentieth century.




Why the Democrats are Blue


Book Description

Stricherz argues that secular, educated elites, using a commission created at the 1968 convention in Chicago, took the Democratic Party away from working class and religious Democrats. This quiet revolution helps explain why six of the last nine Democratic presidential candidates have lost.










Inside


Book Description

Joe Califano grew up in a tight-knit working class family in Depression-era Brooklyn. His parents instilled in their son a work ethic, sense of self, and devotion to Church that stayed with him as he rose through the ranks of America's ruling class. From Jesuit undergraduate schools to Harvard Law, influential law firms, Robert McNamara's Pentagon, Lyndon Johnson's White House, and Jimmy Carter's Cabinet, Califano was hard charging, effective, and committed to his causes—whether that meant reforming the military, working for equal rights for all, his struggle to be a committed Catholic in America, or finally his passion to combat addictions that ruin so many American lives. The book is called Inside, and that's where it takes us—inside his public and private life—as Califano worked in the power centers of three Democratic administrations. He shows us how hardball is often necessary to make government serve its people. Califano remained "inside" even out of government, representing the Washington Post and Democratic Party during Watergate. Inside is history, memoir, and a profoundly revealing personal drama of a powerful figure involved in many defining events of the last half century. It is a tale of how ambition, tenacity and courage, guided by deeply felt ethics, can move the world, from the inside.




The elections, 1789-1992


Book Description




The Whole Damn Deal


Book Description

"Robert S. Strauss was for many decades, the quintessential political operator. He played a pivotal role in US politics for more than fifty years, serving as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, US Trade Representative, and US Ambassador to the USSR and later Russia. He has advised and represented many US presidents for both major political parties. Yet, we know very little of this man who has been so influential behind the scenes. This is the story of how Bobby Strauss, a poor, Jewish boy from West Texas, became Robert S. Strauss, a lawyer and politician of national and international renown. Strauss entered national politics when Beltway outsiders were planning their takeover of the Democratic Party in the aftermath of the divisive 1968 Chicago convention. After the 1972 nomination and subsequent defeat of George McGovern polarized the old and new factions of the Democratic Party, Strauss became chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He managed to create a coalition of old guard conservatives, minorities, youth, and representatives of both labor and big business that resembled the patchwork Democratic Party we still have to this day. Strauss excelled at balancing accommodation and persuasion. He was proud to be an insider and a politician, even when those were considered dirty words, because he enjoyed the negotiations that politics then entailed. His Texas charm and political savvy won over both sides of the aisle in Washington. This book will describe what went on in the smoke-filled rooms, and in the bathrooms of the hotel suites, "where the real decisions were made, " as Strauss likes to say. It is a vivid portrait of a bygone era of civilized Washington politics, when Republicans and Democrats worked together without fear of criticism. "--