cover image The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s

The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s

G. Calvin Mackenzie, Robert S. Weisbrot, . . Penguin Press, $27.95 (432pp) ISBN 978-1-59420-170-7

Mackenzie and Weisbrot (Maximum Danger ), professors of government and history respectively at Colby College, provide an insightful and well-argued analysis of the 1960s' social, economic and policy dynamics that opened both the public and the government to great and necessary social legislation. The authors argue that the postwar movement of political power from the cities to the suburbs, the decline of conservative Southern Democrats' power in the party and the confident climate of prosperity facilitated the greatest and most far-reaching federal legislation since the New Deal. Unlike many historians of this period, Weisbrot and Mackenzie, in addition to telling of key civil rights legislation and Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, also give due and detailed diligence to environmental legislation, such as the Clean Air Act and the Wilderness Act, which defined strict rules to ensure federally owned wilderness largely remained wilderness. Throughout, the authors reveal how prosperity and a rare window of real opportunity with Democrats in power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue fueled domestic reform. (July 7)