Taking Stock: American Government in the Twentieth Century

by Edited by Morton Keller , R. Shep Melnick

• ISBN13: 9780521652285
• ISBN10: 0521652286
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

What is American government like today? How has it changed - and how has it remained the same - over the course of the century now coming to a close? This study seeks to provide the fullest and most thoughtful answers yet offered to these questions. It brings together eminent historians and political scientists to examine the past experience, current state, and future prospects of five major American public issues: trade and tariff policy, immigration and aliens, conservation and environmentalism, civil rights, and social welfare. The contributors examine the evolving nature of these issues, the reactive policies of the federal government, and the institutional devices by which these policies have been applied. Never before have these major public policy issues been explored so deeply, and with such insight, in a collaborative effort crossing disciplinary borders.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Michael J. Lacey
Taking Stock	1	(14)
Morton Keller
PART I: TRADE AND TARIFF POLICY
Trade Policy in Historical Perspective	15	(20)
Morton Keller
The Triumph of Liberal Trade: American Trade Policy in the Postwar Period	35	(22)
David Vogel
PART II: IMMIGRANTS AND ALIENS
The Progressive State and the Legacy of Collective Immigrant Identities	57	(24)
Reed Ueda
The Racialization of Immigration Policy	81	(42)
Peter Skerry
PART III: CONSERVATION AND ENVIRONMENTALISM
The Many Faces of Conservation: Natural Resources and the American State, 1900-1940	123	(33)
Donald J. Pisani
Risky Business: Government and the Environment after Earth Day	156	(31)
R. Shep Melnick
PART IV: CIVIL RIGHTS
Since 1964: The Paradox of American Civil Rights Regulation	187	(32)
Hugh Davis Graham
You Win Some, You Lose Some: Explaining the Pattern of Success and Failure in the Second Reconstruction	219	(30)
Jennifer L. Hochschild
PART V: SOCIAL WELFARE
From Beginning to End: Has Twentieth-Century U.S. Social Policy Come Full Circle?	249	(31)
Theda Skocpol
Conclusion: Governing More but Enjoying It Less	280	(27)
R. Shep Melnick
Appendix: Major Environmental Statutes Enacted in the 1970s and 1980s	307	(4)
Contributors	311	(4)
Index	315