The past thirty-five years have marked an era of conservatism. Although briefly interrupted in the late 1970s and temporarily reversed in the 1990s, a powerful surge from the right dominated American politics and government from 1974 to 2008. In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz, one of our nation's l[...]

This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing force[...]

Sean Wilentz discovered Bob Dylan's music as a teenager growing up in Greenwich Village. Now, almost half a century later, he revisits Dylan's work with the skills of an eminent American historian as well as the passion of a fan.
Beginning with Dylan's explosion onto the scene in 1961, Wilentz f[...]

The plainspoken man from Missouri who never expected to be president yet rose to become one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth centuryIn April 1945, after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the presidency fell to a former haberdasher and clubhouse politician from Independence, Missouri. M[...]

The judicious statesman who won victories abroad but suffered defeat at home, whose wisdom and demeanor served America well at a critical time George Bush was a throwback to a different era. A patrician figure not known for eloquence, Bush dismissed ideology as "the vision thing." Yet, as Timothy Na[...]

The oddly named president whose shortsightedness and stubbornness fractured the nation and sowed the seeds of civil warIn the summer of 1850, America was at a terrible crossroads. Congress was in an uproar over slavery, and it was not clear if a compromise could be found. In the midst of the debate,[...]

In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz offers a fresh, brilliant chronicle of America's political history since the fall of Nixon. The past thirty-five years have marked an era of conservatism. Although briefly interrupted in the late 1970s and temporarily reversed in the 1990s, a powerful surge from th[...]

Growing up in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, Sean Wilentz discovered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager. Almost half a century later, now a distinguished professor of American history, he revisits Dylan's work with the critical skills of a scholar and the passion of a fan. Drawing partly on[...]

One of the most important and controversial books in modern American politics, The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) explained how Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968-and why the Republicans would go on to dominate presidential politics for the next quarter century. Rightly or wrongly, the b[...]

George W. Bush stirred powerful feelings on both sides of the aisle. Republicans viewed him as a resolute leader who guided America through the worst terrorist attack in its history and retaliated in Afghanistan and Iraq, while Democrats saw him as an overmatched president, subservient to his advise[...]