Evil Geniuses; The Unmaking of America

Description

During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope. Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt Andersen offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America’s undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame—to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal “useful idiots,” among whom he includes himself. Only a writer with Andersen’s crackling energy, deep insight, and ability to connect disparate dots and see complex systems with clarity could make such a book both intellectually formidable and vastly entertaining. And only a writer of Andersen’s vision could reckon with our current high-stakes inflection point, and show the way out of this man-made disaster. Title Page Copyright Epigraph Contents Introduction Part One: A Brief History of America Chapter 1: Land of the New: America from 1600 to 1865 Chapter 2: Land of the New: An Economic History from the 1770s to the 1970s Chapter 3: Approaching Peak New: The 1960s Part Two: Turning Point Chapter 4: The 1970s: An Equal and Opposite Reaction Chapter 5: The 1970s: Liberalism Peaks and the Counterrevolution Begins Chapter 6: The 1970s: Building the Counter-Establishment Chapter 7: The 1970s: From a Bicentennial Pageant to a Presidency Chapter 8: The 1970s: Neoliberal Useful Idiots Part Three: Wrong Turn Chapter 9: The Reagan Revolution Chapter 10: Raw Deal: What Happened in the 1980s Didn’t Stay in the 1980s Chapter 11: The Rule of Law Chapter 12: The Deregulation Generation Chapter 13: The Culture of Greed Is Good Chapter 14: How Wall Street Ate America Chapter 15: Workers of the New World, You Lose Chapter 16: Insecurity Is a Feature, Not a Bug Chapter 17: Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative, Generally Complacent Chapter 18: The Permanent Reagan Revolution Chapter 19: The 1990s: Restrained and Reckless Part Four: Same Old Same Old Chapter 20: Rewind, Pause, Stop: The End of the New Chapter 21: The Politics of Nostalgia and Stagnation Since the 1990s Chapter 22: Ruthless Beats Reasonable Chapter 23: Winners and Losers in the Class War Chapter 24: American Exceptionalism Part Five: Make America New Again Chapter 25: Winners and Losers (So Far) in the Digital Revolution Chapter 26: How the Future Will Work Chapter 27: This Strategic Inflection Point Chapter 28: What Is to Be Done? Chapter 29: The Plague Year and Beyond Dedication Acknowledgments Bibliography Other Titles About the Author