By Nicholas J. Kaster
Seldom in history has a program been undertaken with such lofty intentions and ended in such bitter disappointment as Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” In her latest book Great Society: A New History, Amity Shlaes provides a fresh appraisal of the idealistic policies that came to define the 1960s and a historical narrative that is especially timely now.
Shlaes’ book is a follow-up to The Forgotten Man, her excellent history of the Great Depression. This book is an apt sequel, since the Great Society was promoted as the completion of the “unfinished business” of the New Deal. However, there was a significant difference between the two programs. The New Deal originated in response to a severe economic crisis. In contrast, the Great Society was enacted at a time of economic prosperity, when poverty rates were dropping.
Indeed, as Shlaes makes clear, it was the very prosperity and confidence of the postwar years that made the Great Society possible. “Compared to overcoming a Great Depression or conquering Europe and Japan,” Shlaes writes, “eliminating poverty or racial discrimination had to be easy.
American society was already so good…This good society had to become, in the words of President Johnson, a Great Society.”...........To Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment