America's Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton (The American Moment)

America's fundamental shift in political persuasion--the gradual erosion of the coalition formed during the New Deal and simultaneous rise in popular conservatism ultimately embodied in Ronald Reagan, is lucidly--and, one must note, concisely--described by William C. Berman, professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto. He begins with the presidential election of 1964, in which racial politics and economic pressures on the middle class began to emerge as central issues in American politics, and provides the factual history with commendable objectivity and a minimum of academic abstruseness. Progressing in a straightforward chronological manner, Berman hits the major political stories of the last three decades of the 20th century; although the book contains little that is startling or revelatory, Berman's portrayal of characters and events, both major and minor, add up to a substantive one-volume history. --Robert McNamara