Description

Race and the Making of American Liberalism traces the roots of the contemporary crisis of progressive liberalism deep into the nation's racial past. Horton argues that the contemporary conservative claim that the American liberal tradition has been rooted in a "color blind" conception of individual rights is innaccurate and misleading. In contrast, American liberalism has alternatively served both to support and oppose racial hierarchy, as well as socioeconomic inequality more broadly. Racial politics in the United States have repeatedly made it exceedingly difficult to establish powerful constituencies that understand socioeconomic equity as vital to American democracy and aspire to limit gross disparities of wealth, power, and status. Revitalizing such equalitarian conceptions of American liberalism, Horton suggests, will require developing new forms of racial and class identity that support, rather than sabotage this fundamental political commitment.

Reviews

"This is a splendid study. It will make fascinating and indispensable reading not only for anyone interested in racial issues in America, but also for those who want to understand the nature of American culture itself."--Cass Sunstein, Karl Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago

"Scholars keep trying to bury Louis Hartz and his claim that American politics is comprised of 'irrational Lockean liberalism,' but he keeps rising from the grave. This latest revival directly targets Hartz's inability to deal with racial hierarchy. Carol Horton shows clearly how Americans can be liberal, racist, and egalitarian all at once, albeit in different configurations during different historical periods. One may hope that Race and the Making of American Liberalism finally lays to rest the idea that Americans have to move outside their liberal tradition in order to accommodate their racial heritage."--Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, Harvard University

"Horton's path breaking book shows not only the centrality of race to the principal conflicts in this nation's history but also how those conflicts remain reflected in the contemporary political, cultural, and social map of the nation. Race and the Making of American Liberalism will quickly become mandatory reading for serious scholars of American political development, race and politics in the \nited States, and American political thought."--Michael Dawson, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

"Race and the Making of American Liberalism is an ambitious and deeply serious book. In traversing the last 150 years it scrupulously recognizes that American liberalism while being the defining creed of this country has never been a unitary constellation of ideas. It has often simultaneously defended racial hierarchy and nondiscriminatory social equity. Few books combine such theoretical nuance with such historical range."--Uday Mehta, Professor of Political Science, Amherst College

Product Details

312 pages; frontispiece; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-514348-5ISBN10: 0-19-514348-5

About the Author(s)