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CHAIN REACTION

THE IMPACT OF RACE, RIGHTS, AND TAXES ON AMERICAN POLITICS

An incisive analysis from Washington Post journalist Edsall (The New Politics of Inequality, 1984) of the political equivalent of a continental drift: the electoral realignment in which Republicans have won the White House five out of the last six times since 1964. Edsall's explanation for this shift is not unique: The GOP, he says, has used two overlapping issues, race and taxes, to splinter the old New Deal coalition, pitting whites—resentful of busing, affirmative action, and other federal remedies to aid blacks and other minorities—against these programs' beneficiaries. Edsall traces how Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon, with varying degrees of success, exploited these issues as well as the cultural tensions arising from the 60's rights revolution on behalf of other groups (e.g., criminal defendants, gays, the handicapped). The now-familiar scenario found ``Reagan Democrats'' (southern white populists and northern blue-collar ethnics) linking with affluent Republicans in shifting government benefits away from recipients of liberal largesse. Although giving only glancing attention to the influence of war-and-peace issues on the electorate, Edsall impressively supports his analysis of the Democratic decline at the presidential level with extensive polling and demographic data, interviews with lapsed Democrats, and a devastating portrait of liberalism at bay, ``intellectually fearful'' of addressing the ills of the black underclass and thus continuing to alienate disaffected voters and leaving the party a toothless defender of the working class and poor. A powerful companion to Nicholas Lemann's The Promised Land (p. 32) and Kevin Phillips's The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990) in detailing the racial and class tensions that are rending America's social fabric and poisoning its body politic.

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1991

ISBN: 0-393-02983-2

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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