The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan

Robert Mason is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh, where he has worked since 1998. In 2004–5 he held a fellowship at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress. Professor Mason is the author of Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (2004).

'History is written by the victors, says the old saw, and so it always seems with the Democratic Party and the long New Deal era. Robert Mason has set out to correct this imbalance with a rich and careful study of politicking inside the Republican Party from the arrival of Franklin Roosevelt to the arrival of Ronald Reagan. We meet the major players, the major factions, the major policies, and the major strategic gambits, all jousting for the chance to bring that long era to an end. Along the way, we are reminded how difficult it is to make sense of our own time while it unfolds and how difficult it is, as a result, to line up the coalition behind some alternative vision.' Byron E. Shafer, Hawkins Chair of Political Science, University of Wisconsin

• Introduction; 1. From old Home Melodies to jazz music: 1928–33; 2. As Maine goes, so goes Vermont: 1933–9; 3. The simple barefoot Wall Street lawyer: 1939–45; 4. Liberty versus socialism: 1945–53; 5. Modern Republicanism: 1953–61; 6. A choice, not an echo: 1960–8; 7. There's a realignment going on: 1968–76; 8. You are witnessing the great realignment: 1977–89; Conclusion.