Retrato do autor
11+ Works 339 Membros 5 Críticas 1 Favorited

About the Author

Gary Gerstle is the Paul Mellon Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge and the author of Liberty and Coercion (Princeton).

Includes the name: Professor Gary Gerstle

Obras por Gary Gerstle

Associated Works

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
1954-01-07
Sexo
male

Membros

Críticas

This book provides a comprehensive history and analysis of the Neoliberal Order. It begins with a short summary of the rise and fall of the New Deal Order, the subject of a previous book by the author. It then explains the initial growth of Neoliberal thought. The remaining chapters retell American postwar history pointing out the influences that Neoliberalism had on that history. It finishes with the Neoliberal Order lying in ruins after the Trump presidency and speculates on what a future order could look like.

The book would be interesting to people interested in economics and recent political history. The main weakness of the book is the lack of discussion of Neoliberalism outside of the USA. The introduction is also weak.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
M_Clark | 2 outras críticas | Mar 17, 2023 |
Gary Gerstle is an emeritus professor of American history at Cambridge University in the UK.
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order is a book about American history written for a general audience about the period of American history and politics from the Great Depression until early 2021. Mr. Gerstle used the tools of the historian to tell a complicated story, in narrative form, about the how institutions, individuals, ideas, wealth and power worked.
Mr. Gerstle discusses, briefly, wealth in America, and the American version of “classical” liberal ideology and politics in the late 19th century. He suggests that Americans, after regarding the American Revolution as a rejection of government by an aristocracy, and the adoption of republican government. The American founders regarded the ownership and use of property by individuals and private interests as important to the working of society. Prof. Gerstle accepts that the signatories of the Declaration of Independence had did not read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations or other foundational theories of economic liberalism, but does not argue that the founders regulated or protected economic rights in the original Constitution or Bill of Rights. Prof. Gerstle maintains that a laissez-faire form of liberalism was the ideology of the American gilded age in the 19th century, believed by robber barons, bankers, businessmen and the middle class.
Americans came to regard the power of wealth and the influence of business elites threats to the goals, living standards and liberty of Americans. American politicians enacted laws regulating economic concentration and later, banking. The collapse of the world economy in 1930, led to the liberalism of the New Deal, a synthesis of liberalism with acceptance of the justifiable uses of government power. The New Deal economic order continued after World War II when American business interests supported a strong national government to protect American prosperity from the Communist system. The use of government power to restrict business was widely accepted.
American business interests funded efforts to transform New Deal liberalism into Washington consensus globalist neoliberalism. At the same time, American culture adopted consumerism and environmentalism as progressive or liberal social goals. Consumerism demanded better quality, more durable, safer and less expensive product be manufacuted and sold by industry and that the government assure those outcomes. It fostered suspicion that when government was not doing enough, it was lazy, careless, remote or corrupt. The Reagan presidency, followed by the Clinton presidency, colloraborated in the destruction of US competition law, the destruction of American industry by globalization, the privatization and commercialization of the Internet, and the deregulation of banks. The American public, fascinated by luxury and accepting the apparent inevitability of the system, acquiesced. This led to the Crash of 2008 and the collapse of the middle class. This caused the Trump presidency, QAnon, and crisis of the 2020 election.
It is a lucid narrative. Like other narratives, it makes some leaps of proof and logic.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
BraveKelso | 2 outras críticas | Jan 8, 2023 |
A compendium of our recent political and economic history--the writing of history while the history is happening.
 
Assinalado
cjneary | 2 outras críticas | Dec 24, 2022 |
Gerstle places race as the driving force in American life in the 20th century, which is debatable. He goes beyond the typical black/white divide to bring in southern and eastern Europeans as well as Asian immigrants.

Gerstle theorizes that the driving force in race was the meaning of being a "white" American. He goes so far as to contend that the comic book hero Superman was a metaphor for an attempt at assimilation, that Superman tried to hide his identity by assuming the respectable identity of Clark Kent. How did Superman hide his identity in the blue tights with red underwear on the outside and a big red cape with a gigantic "S" emblazoned on his chest?

Gerstle also has a Teddy Roosevelt fetish. Everything comes back to "WWTRT," what would Teddy Roosevelt think? Gerstle surmises what TR would have thought about Nixon's views. Really? Is that appropriate? TR was a dynamic character, who would not have remained static into the 1970s.

The one thing that stands out in Gerstle's book is his explanation of the vacillating notions of civic nationalism (the American Creed that all people are equal) and racial nationalism (that one group, usually whites are superior). This comes into sharp focus as he discusses the change in tone of the civil rights movement after 1964.

Since the work covers a century of history, it is quite thin in spots. But, on the whole it is a useful book.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
w_bishop | 1 outra crítica | Mar 12, 2011 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
11
Also by
2
Membros
339
Popularidade
#70,285
Avaliação
½ 3.7
Críticas
5
ISBN
28
Línguas
1
Marcado como favorito
1

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