Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Historian Shenk (Maurice Dobb) spotlights in this immersive account politicians and activists who have "a power that's unique to modern democracies: the ability to form electoral coalitions that bind millions of people together in a single cause." The "realigners" profiled span U.S. political history from James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to Barack Obama. Also included are Charles Sumner, whose fervent abolitionism captured the hearts and minds of his fellow Republicans; W.E.B. Du Bois, whose quest to "compel Americans to live up to their supposed ideals" laid the groundwork for the civil rights era; and anti-feminist crusader Phyllis Schlafly, "the First Lady of the American right." The formation of white majorities at the expense of Black Americans' political ambitions is a recurrent theme: Democratic Party founder Martin Van Buren fashioned an alliance between "the planters of the South and the plain republicans of the North" in the 1820s, while "Dollar" Mark Hanna and other Republican leaders accepted "the restoration of white supremacy" in the South with Jim Crow. Though Shenk offers a valuable framework for analyzing American politics, his choice of realigners feels somewhat arbitrary--Franklin Roosevelt gets sidelined in favor of Du Bois and journalist Walter Lippman in chapters on the New Deal coalition. Still, this is an astute and stylish history that speaks to present-day concerns over partisan polarization. Illus. Agent: Edward Orloff, McCormick Literary. (Oct.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Historian Shenk (George Washington, Univ.; Maurice Dobb: Political Economist) uses this biography to discuss the nation's "democratic elite" and how they forged powerful coalitions of voters--majorities in eras when a single party or ideology dominated U.S. politics. From abolitionists to intellectuals to politicos, these movers and shakers shaped party strategies as well as electoral shifts. President Martin Van Buren fashioned America's two-party system. Political kingmaker Mark Hanna inaugurated a generation of Republican ascendency until the Great Depression ushered Democrats into power for more than 40 years. African American statesmen W. E. B. Du Bois and Barack Obama, journalist Walter Lippmann, and activist Phyllis Schlafly each realigned the republic in very different ways. It is not always clear how these individuals are uniquely illustrative of his theme, but he tells their stories engagingly and ends with high hopes for the future. VERDICT A composite biography of political influencers since 1776, this book will deepen readers' understanding of the American democratic process.--Michael Rodriguez
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A sharp assessment of American political history and the arc of its pendulum, which tends not toward justice but toward the wealthy. "If there's an abiding winner in the long history of American democracy," writes history professor and Dissent co-editor Shenk, "it's the people with money." The uber-wealthy are usually more or less in the background, but they back members of what the author calls the "democratic elite" who span the distance between rulers and the ruled. It's these people, Shenk suggests, who have been responsible for conjuring realignments whereby political gridlock or monopoly is broken, if perhaps only temporarily. James Madison's early alliance with Alexander Hamilton fell apart over who would govern, with "the opulent" Hamiltonians believing that democracy was doomed because the people could not govern themselves. The situation with Hamilton ended badly, but the struggle for power between what would become Republicans and Federalists, and then Whigs and Democrats and New Grangers and all the rest, would endure--but not, Shenk notes, before those early Republicans strangled the Federalists through a realignment that essentially gave them a lock on the electorate and "liberated Americans from the burdens of partisanship." The burden would soon enough be reimposed, only to see new realignments, era after era, notably with Franklin Roosevelt's building a power base among the working and middle classes while forging racial unity, something that Donald Trump would do in reverse. Most realignments end up failures, notes Shenk, as does everything else: Politics has always been an exercise in crisis management. Still, at the close of this catalog of tangled maneuvering (as when Obama won the elite for the Democratic Party while losing much of the working class), Shenk foresees other possibilities were the two dominant parties to realign to vie for those forgotten workers and a multiracial coalition to emerge to "jolt the legislative process back to life." A novel, intriguing reading of how power politics works--and, with a little imagination, might work. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
