When–and how–did America become so polarized? In this masterful history, leading historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer uncover the origins of our current moment. It all starts in 1974 with the Watergate crisis, the OPEC oil embargo, desegregation busing riots in Boston, and the wind-down of the Vietnam War. What follows is the story of our own lifetimes. It is the story of … ever-widening historical fault lines over economic inequality, race, gender, and sexual norms firing up a polarized political landscape. It is also the story of profound transformations of the media and our political system fueling the fire. Kruse and Zelizer’s Fault Lines is a master class in national divisions nearly five decades in the making.
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Fault Lines is a brilliantly written and urgently needed account of the last half century of American history, decades during which, as Kruse and Zelizer argue, Americans abandoned a search for common ground in favor of a political culture of endless, vicious, and ― very often ― mindless division. A gripping and troubling account of the origins of our turbulent, desperate times.
Fault Lines is a must-read. Kruse and Zelizer have taken the fragmented histories of a polarized, divided nation, and masterfully woven those threads into a tapestry that allows us to see not only what divides but what unites and that the choice is ours.
Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer’s Fault Lines is a brilliant primer for understanding the troubling precedents for today’s mass American political dysfunction. Both historians are deeply informed and surefooted thinkers. A must-read foundational work for our time!
June 17, 1972.
It was the day of my marriage. By our first anniversary, the date had another meaning: the date of the Watergate break-in.
As a girl, I had seen America come together with the assassination of President Kennedy and divide over the war in Viet Nam. The sounds of my teenage years were the chants of “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today,” and the music of Woodstock.
I finished my education, worked, had a child, sent him to college, saw him settle in work and a house, and retired against the backdrop of a further dividing America.
Fault Lines condenses history into paragraphs, each event eliciting a memory. I remembered it all. And the more I read the angrier I became.
In under 400 pages, Kevin M. Kruse and Justin E. Zelizer have compacted American political, social, and media history into a readable narrative.
Movements arose demanding equal rights while counter-movements strove to maintain the status quo–the authority of white males. The conflict has not resolved to a Hegelian shift to the center though, just a rising antagonism and deepening divide.
They describe how cultural shifts and disturbances impacted film and television and how the rise of the Internet and cable news shattered the common ground of national news.
For me, it was a condensation of memories. I had to wonder how a younger reader would respond. The authors are historians and Princeton University professors. They have taught this history to students.
This is a history book and not an offering of solutions; there are plenty of current books that address where to go from here. The authors state that the challenge is to “harness the intense energy that now drives us apart and channel it once again toward creating new and stronger bridges that can bring us together.”
But so far, those leaders who endeavored to bridge the gap and pledge bipartisanship failed. There is no indication that the old fashioned values cherished in the past–working together for the common good, obeying the rule of law and custom, communicating, finding common ground–are reemerging. Instead, political leaders are ignoring the will of the majority, engineering ways to disenfranchise groups, with special interest group money buying political clout.
We are told that by knowing the past we can plan for the future, understanding our errors we can proactively prevent the repetition of those errors. I know that America has gone astray many times in our brief history, and the countering movements arighted our ship of state. It is my ‘glass half full’ hope.
I received an ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
Comprehensive, fair-minded ― half an American lifetime between two covers and in one fast-paced telling!