In this fascinating new history, Judith Stein argues that in order to understand our current economic crisis we need to look back to the 1970s and the end of the age of the factory—the era of postwar liberalism, created by the New Deal, whose practices, high wages, and regulated capital produced both robust economic growth and greater income equality. When high oil prices and economic competition from Japan and Germany battered the American economy, new policies—both international and dome...

The history of modern liberalism has been hotly debated incontemporary politics and the academy. Here, Judith Stein usesthe steel industry — long considered fundamental to the U.S.economy — to examine liberal policies and priorities after WorldWar II. In a provocative revision of postwar American history,she argues that it was the primacy of foreign commitments and theoutdated economic policies of the state, more than the nation’sracial conf...

How the Clinton administration betrayed its progressive principles and capitulated to the rightWhen Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, he ended twelve years of Republican rule and seemed poised to enact a progressive transformation of the US economy, touching everything from health care to trade to labor relations. Yet by the time he left office, the nation’s economic and social policies had instead lurched dramatically rightward, exacerbating the inequali...

When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, he ended twelve years of Republican rule and seemed poised to enact a progressive transformation of the US economy, touching everything from health care to trade to labor relations. Yet by the time he left office, the nation's economic and social policies had instead lurched dramatically rightward, exacerbating the inequalities so troubling in our own time.Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein show how the administration's progressive...