First published 2014
Heather Cox Richardson examines the Republican Party's transformation from Abraham Lincoln's vision of economic opportunity for all Americans to Ronald Reagan's embrace of corporate interests. Richardson traces how the party Lincoln founded to challenge wealthy Southern planters repeatedly fell victim to the same forces it originally opposed. She shows how progressive Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower attempted to prevent wealth concentration through government action, only to see their efforts undermined by business interests and fellow party members. The book follows this cyclical pattern from the Civil War era through the Great Recession, revealing how the party's ideological shifts damaged minorities, the middle class, and the nation. Richardson demonstrates how America's youngest major political party became both its greatest hope and most consistent source of disappointment.
Genres: history, 20th-century, political-science, biography-memoir, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction, political-drama
Setting: United States
Period: Civil War Era, Great Recession, Twentieth Century
416 pages · Hardcover · Basic Books