Beyond the New Deal Order

Gary Gerstle is the Paul Mellon Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge. He is author of Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present and American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century. He is coeditor, with Steve Fraser, of The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980. Nelson Lichtenstein is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is editor of American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century; coeditor, with Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, of The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology, and Imagination; and coeditor, with Richard Flacks, of The Port Huron Statement: Sources and Legacies of the New Left's Founding Manifesto; all of which are available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Alice O'Connor is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History and Social Science for What?: Philanthropy and the Social Question in a World Turned Rightside Up.

"If we want to understand the driving forces and the scope of the wide-ranging shifts in our societies on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, it is essential, then, to be more precise about neoliberalism as an analytical concept and as a tool to grasp historical change. This is one of the goals of Gary Gerstle, Nelson Lichtenstein, and Alice O'Connor's recent look at the New Deal order and its transformation. Refining the earlier claim of a radical shift brought about by the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the authors instead point at an accumulation of changes which, ultimately, signaled the inception of a new 'neoliberal order.'" (Reviews in American History) "[An] important synthesis of twentieth-century US history with [a] much-needed framework for the 'Neoliberal Order' which could be said to have defined the US political-economy from 1980 to 2016… [A]n extremely valuable book for anyone looking to understand the limits and unfulfilled promise of the New Deal state." (The New England Quarterly) "As both a historical and historiographical marker of persistence and transformation, this outstanding volume invites readers to consider anew the New Deal's legacies and successors. Offering inventive analytical reflections that illuminate recent decades of the American experience, the book's bracing essays prompt fresh thought about periodization, historical causation, the scope of possibility, and a good deal more." (Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time) "An ambitious and exciting collection. After twenty-five years of reflection, do historians believe there was a 'New Deal order'? If there was, and it ended, what replaced it? How have understandings of the postwar period changed to accommodate a fuller sense of what the New Deal accomplished and what its limits were? Each essay is compelling and the various questions they address are deeply important." (Kimberly Phillips-Fein, author of Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics) "A timely book that will appeal to anyone interested in American politics from the New Deal to the present. Every chapter, without exception, is excellent." (Daniel Geary, author of Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy)