Michael Kazin

A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceA most anticipated book of 2022 at Vulture and Kirkus ReviewsA leading historian tells the story of the United States' most enduring political party and its long, imperfect, and newly invigorated quest for "moral capitalism," from Andrew Jackson to Joseph Biden.The Democratic Party is the world's oldest mass political organization. But what has the party stood for through the centuries, and how has it managed to succeed in elections and govern? In What It Took to Win, the eminent historian Michael Kazin tells the story of the party's longtime commitment to promoting "moral capitalism," a system that mixes entrepreneurial freedom with the welfare of workers. Yet the party that championed the rights of the white working man also vigorously protected or furthered the causes of slavery, segregation, and Native American removal. With its evolution toward a more inclusive, egalitarian vision, the party won durable victories for Americans of all backgrounds. But it has also struggled to hold together a majority coalition and advance a persuasive agenda. Kazin traces the party's fortunes through vivid character sketches of its key thinkers and doers, from William Jennings Bryan to Eleanor Roosevelt to Barack Obama. Throughout, Kazin reveals the rich interplay of personality, belief, strategy, and policy that defines the life of the Democratic Party and outlines the core components of a political legacy that President Joe Biden and his co-partisans rely on today as they seek to revitalize the American political experiment.

Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans questioned the fundamental tenets of capitalism and expressed openness to a socialist alternative. We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism - American Style offers a road map to making this alternative a reality, giving readers a practical vision of a future that is more democratic, egalitarian, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable. We Own the Future articulates a clear and uncompromising view from the left - a perfectly timed book that will appeal to a wide audience hungry for change.

A dramatic account of the Americans who tried to stop their nation from fighting in the First World War--and came close to succeeding.In this "fascinating" (Los Angeles Times) narrative, Michael Kazin brings us into the ranks of one of the largest, most diverse, and most sophisticated peace coalitions in US history. The activists came from a variety of backgrounds: wealthy, middle, and working class; urban and rural; white and black; Christian and Jewish and atheist. They mounted street demonstrations and popular exhibitions, attracted prominent leaders from the labor and suffrage movements, ran peace candidates for local and federal office, met with President Woodrow Wilson to make their case, and founded new organizations that endured beyond the cause. For almost three years, they helped prevent Congress from authorizing a massive increase in the size of the US army--a step advocated by ex-president Theodore Roosevelt. When the Great War's bitter legacy led to the next world war, the warnings of these peace activists turned into a tragic prophecy--and the beginning of a surveillance state that still endures today. Peopled with unforgettable characters and written with riveting moral urgency, War Against War is a "fine, sorrowful history" (The New York Times) and "a timely reminder of how easily the will of the majority can be thwarted in even the mightiest of democracies" (The New York Times Book Review).

In The Populist Persuasion, the distinguished historian Michael Kazin guides readers through the expressions of conflict between powerful elites and "the people" that have run through our civic life, filling it with discord and meaning from the birth of the United States until the present day. Kazin argues persuasively that the power of populism lies in its adaptable nature. Across the political spectrum, commentators paste the label on forces and individuals who really have just one big thing in common: they are effective at blasting "elites" or "the establishment" for harming the interests and betraying the ideals of "the people" in nations that are committed, at least officially, to democratic principles. Kazin's classic book has influenced debates over populism since its publication. The new preface to this edition brings the story up to date by charting the present resurgence of populist discourse, which was front and center in the 2016 elections and in the Brexit debate.

A panoramic yet intimate history of the American left--of the reformers, radicals, and idealists who have fought for a more just and humane society, from the abolitionists to Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky--that gives us a revelatory new way of looking at two centuries of American politics and culture. Michael Kazin--one of the most respected historians of the American left working today--takes us from abolitionism and early feminism to the labor struggles of the industrial age, through the emergence of anarchists, socialists, and communists, right up to the New Left in the 1960s and '70s. While the history of the left is a long story of idealism and determination, it has also been, in the traditional view, a story of movements that failed to gain support from mainstream America. In "American Dreamers," Kazin tells a new history: one in which many of these movements, although they did not fully succeed on their own terms, nonetheless made lasting contributions to American society that led to equal opportunity for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure; multiculturalism in the media and the schools; and the popularity of books and films with altruistic and antiauthoritarian messages. Deeply informed, at once judicious and impassioned, and superbly written, "American Dreamers" is an essential book for our times and for anyone seeking to understand our political history and the people who made it. "From the Hardcover edition."

'My friends, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.' So began the first of Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous Fireside Chats, which came on the heels of his decision, two days after his inauguration, to close all American banks. During this address, Roosevelt used the intimacy of radio to share his hopes and plans directly with the people. He concluded by encouraging Americans to 'tell me your troubles.' Roosevelt's invitation was unprecedented, and the enormous public response it elicited signaled the advent of a new relationship between Americans and their president. In this indispensable book, Lawrence W. Levine and Cornelia R. Levine illuminate the period from 1933 to 1938 by setting each of the Fireside Chats in context and reprinting a moving selection of the letters that poured into Washington from an extraordinary variety of ordinary Americans. In his foreword, Michael Kazin examines the achievements and limits of the New Deal and the reasons that FDR remains, for many Americans, the exemplar of a good president. He also highlights the similarities of the 1930s to our era, with its deep recession and a new progressive administration in the White House.

America Divided is the definitive interpretive survey of the political, social, and cultural history of 1960s America. It is an essential book for anyone studying or interested in the 1960s, or the last fifty years of American history.

A compelling portrait of William Jennings Bryan describes his unique role as a leader of the Christian left, his seminal place in both American politics and religion, and his life and work in terms of the volatile political landscape of turn-of-the-century America. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

The definitive interpretive survey of the political, social, and cultural history of 1960s america, America Divided is written by two of the top experts on the era — Maurice Isserman, a scholar of the Left, and Michael Kazom, a specialist in Right-wing politics and culture. Arguing that the period marked the end of the country's two-century-long ascent toward widespread affluence, domestic consensus, and international hegemony, the authors take readers on a tour of the turbulent decade, exploring what did and did not change in the 1960s, and why American culture and politics have never been the same since. Considering the factors which led up to the sixties, and issues such as the changing mind and condition of black America, the heyday and limitations of liberalism, youth culture, Vietnam, the New Left, the conservative revivial, Nixon, and the search for spirituality, Like a Civil War, explains what made the 1960s a decade in which people felt they could 'make history' and why, in the following decades, the history that was made has been so troubling to Americans. Also shedding some much-needed light on the era's often overlooked rise of the New Right and its far-reaching implications, Like A Civil War is an exciting and educational narrative for students of American history and general readers alike.

From the depression of the 1890s through World War I, construction tradesman held an important place in San Francisco's economic, political, and social life. Michael Kazin's award-winning study delves into how the city's Building Trades Council (BTC) created, accumulated, used, and lost their power. He traces the rise of the BTC into a force that helped govern San Francisco, controlled its potential progress, and articulated an ideology that made sense of the changes sweeping the West and the country. Believing themselves the equals of officeholders and corporate managers, these working and retired craftsmen pursued and protected their own power while challenging conservatives and urban elites for the right to govern. What emerges is a long-overdue look at building trades as a force in labor history within the dramatic story of how the city's 25,000 building workers exercised power on the job site and within the halls of government, until the forces of reaction all but destroyed the BTC.