Brendon O'Connor is assistant professor in the School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University.

• Chapter 1 IntroductionPart 2 I The Liberal Welfare SystemChapter 3 Liberalism and Welfare: The Ideological and Political Roots of the American Welfare SystemChapter 4 The Liberal Consensus and the Great SocietyChapter 5 The Seeds of Doom for LiberalismPart 6 II The Conservative Attack on Welfare LiberalismChapter 7 The NeoconservativesChapter 8 Reagan's Conservatives: The Supply-Siders, George Gilder, and Charles MurrayChapter 9 The New RightChapter 10 A Populist Backlash?Part 11 III The Emergence of a Conservative Welfare SystemChapter 12 Bill Clinton's Third Way Welfare Politics: Innovation, Compromise, and CapitulationChapter 13 Newt Gingrich, the Contract with Americaand Justifying the PRWORAChapter 14 Conservative Welfare Policy in Practice

O'Connor's timely volume is a vital reminder to scholars of American politics and government that ideas do indeed matter! He demonstrates how both liberals and conservatives in America have wrestled with the problem of accommodating the need to aid the disadvantaged with America's individualistic political culture. Moroever, his analysis of the politics behind the 1996 welfare reform, based on interviews with many of the key participants, is brilliant. A Political History of the American Welfare System has set the standard of scholarship on the politics of welfare reform.