Solid overview of political, social and cultural realignment on some hot-button social issues from the Great Society to today, namely gay rights, feminism, and abortion.

It's really a 3.5 star ... given so few other reviews, I almost rated it 4, not 3. But, if necessary, I'll come back and change... ...more

This book is largely about the realignment of American politics since about 1964 until the early eighties. It starts off with Johnsons civil rights acts and the war on poverty as the culmination of the New Deals assumptions of "Male Breadwinner Liberalism". Manhood was an unchallenged assumption... ...more

Pretty balanced account of social changes in the U.S. from the 1960s through the 1980s.The theme of family and its redefinition during these years (which coincided with my childhood and youth) is novel and persuasive. ...more

I told myself that I wouldn't get as angry reading this book as I did the first time, but nope. *totally pissed* Fuck straight white dudes. ...more

This book was a bit long to get through, and it was breadth than depth about the subject matter--how breadwinner liberalism became breadwinner conservatism, and led to the development of the New Right in American politics--but I appreciated how he layered so many events in the narrative so that w... ...more

long but worth every word. ...more

Excellent premise, with good supporting evidence. Self argues that the realignment of American politics from liberal to conservative over the past four decades was driven by challenges to gender and sexual roles and which vision predominated. The book explores the various male and female roles, h... ...more

An exhaustively researched and generally engagingly written examination of the shifting sociopolitical attitudes in the United States from Kennedy through Clinton.

Professor Self is particularly adroit in describing the archetypes that politicians and pundits used in framing their rhetoric. As an... ...more

A solid and comprehensive review of US political history from 1960 through 2008. The book is an excellent overview and paints a full picture of how politics has evolved (as Self casts it) from breadwinner liberalism to breadwinner conservatism -- and how politics of other identities has both reac... ...more

An exhaustively researched and detailed narrative of the years from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s in the American realms of politics, sex, education, labor, gender and religion. The usual suspects: Nixon, feminists, gays, Carter, Reagan, et al make appearances. Good, but kind of academic. ...more