Anthony J. Badger – författare

A sweeping history of America during the tumultuous decades between the ends of World War I and World War II, when a mainly rural, isolationist republic was transformed into a nuclear superpower and the leader of the free world.Through the prosperous 1920s and its culture wars to the Great Crash and Depression of the Thirties, the fits and starts of the New Deal, and then the all-consuming fight to defeat fascism in World War II, the twenty-five years from 1920 through 1945 witnessed the creation of what would be known as the American century. Two towering political figures, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D Roosevelt, dominated the politics of these years in which America underwent a breathtaking metamorphosis, with all its power and trade-offs: its predominance on the global stage, its increasingly imperial government, its unprecedented affluence, and its far-flung cultural influence.Prosperity Road captures in telling detail how war and the experiences of economic boom and bust shaped America’s political expectations and its institutions. Written by acclaimed Cambridge historian Anthony J Badger, Prosperity Road is cultural, economic, and political history at its finest and most captivating.Other books in the American History series include:Ecstatic Nation by Brenda WineappleRebirth of a Nation by Jackson LearsWalking Giant by David S. ReynoldsThe Age of Reagan by Sean Wilentz

In tackling America's worst depression the New Deal brought the federal government into unprecedented contact with most Americans and shaped the political economy of the contemporary United States. This major new study incorporates the results of many recent case studies of the New Deal and provides a detailed assessment of the impact of the depression and New Deal programmes on businessmen, industrial workers, farmers and the unemployed. In his thematic analysis of the implementation of particular programmes, rather than in a narrative of policymaking, Dr Badger explains the political and ideological constraints which limited the changes wrought by the New Deal.

Leading scholars reassess the origins and trajectory of the American civil rights movement. Essays highlight the importance of black activism in the 1930s and 1940s and show how white liberals misunderstood the movement. Comparisons with Britain and South Africa reveal how movement leaders secured sympathetic responses at home and abroad and how nonviolence characterised the movement. The essays also challenge traditional concepts of 'race' and 'racial equality', consider the impact of the struggle on participants and trace black political thought since the 1960s.

Jenel Virden outlines the causes, courses and consequences of the major wars of the Twentieth century in American history, examining how the US became involved; how the wars were fought; and the domestic consequences. Applying 'just war theory', foreign policy as well as civil liberty are discussed.

Jenel Virden outlines the causes, courses and consequences of the major wars of the Twentieth century in American history, examining how the US became involved; how the wars were fought; and the domestic consequences. Applying 'just war theory', foreign policy as well as civil liberty are discussed.

It’s not the economy, stupid: How liberal politicians’ faith in the healing powers of economic growth—and refusal to address racial divisions—fueled reactionary politics across the South.From FDR to Clinton, charismatic Democratic leaders have promised a New South—a model of social equality and economic opportunity that is always just around the corner. So how did the region become the stronghold of conservative Republicans in thrall to Donald Trump? After a lifetime studying Southern politics, Anthony Badger has come to a provocative conclusion: white liberals failed because they put their faith in policy solutions as an engine for social change and were reluctant to confront directly the explosive racial politics dividing their constituents.After World War II, many Americans believed that if the edifice of racial segregation, white supremacy, and voter disfranchisement could be dismantled across the South, the forces of liberalism would prevail. Hopeful that economic modernization and education would bring about gradual racial change, Southern moderates were rattled when civil rights protest and federal intervention forced their hand. Most were fatalistic in the face of massive resistance. When the end of segregation became inevitable, it was largely driven by activists and mediated by Republican businessmen.Badger follows the senators who refused to sign the Southern Manifesto and rejected Nixon’s Southern Strategy. He considers the dilemmas liberals faced across the South, arguing that their failure cannot be blamed simply on entrenched racism. Conservative triumph was not inevitable, he argues, before pointing to specific false steps and missed opportunities.Could the biracial coalition of low-income voters that liberal politicians keep counting on finally materialize? Badger sees hope but urges Democrats not to be too complacent.

In this statement about the state of the discipline, prominent scholars address and critique the entire sweep of American political history. Exemplifying the revitalizing power of the ""new political history"" and its renewed emphasis on large ""P"" politics, these writers have combined to produce an illuminating synthesis of the most recent work in the field. Focusing upon both the major policy issues in the politics of each period (substance) and the major social forces shaping politics (structure), these essays chronicle and evaluate the evolution of American politics and society over two and a quarter centuries. In the process, they reflect their authors' collective commitment to a dynamic field of intellectual inquiry, while simultaneously highlighting key interpretive disputes within it.

This study is the first to trace a single Agricultural Adjustment Administration commodity program and to assess the impact of a major New Deal program in North Carolina. The freezing of tobacco growing brought prosperity to the growers but little benefit to the small and tenant farmer. Given the problems that affected both AAA policy making and implementation, the New Deas's choice lay not between a limited or a radical program but between the limited program or none at all.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

In chronicling the life and career of Albert Gore, Sr., historian Anthony J. Badger seeks not just to explore the successes and failures of an important political figure who spent more than three decades in the national eye-and whose son would become Vice President of the United States-but also to explain the dramatic changes in the South that led to national political realignment.Born on a small farm in the hills of Tennessee, Gore served in Congress from 1938 to 1970, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. During that time, the United States became a global superpower and the South a two party desegregated region. Gore, whom Badger describes as a policy-oriented liberal, saw the federal government as the answer to the South's problems. He held a resilient faith, according to Badger, in the federal government to regulate wages and prices in World War II, to further social welfare through the New Deal and the Great Society, and to promote economic growth and transform the infrastructure of the South.Gore worked to make Tennessee the "atomic capital" of the nation and to protect the Tennessee Valley Authority, while at the same time cosponsoring legislation to create the national highway system. He was more cautious in his approach to civil rights; though bolder than his moderate Southern peers, he struggled to adjust to the shifting political ground of the 1960s. His career was defined by his relationship with Lyndon Johnson, whose Vietnam policies Gore bitterly opposed. The injection of Christian perspectives into the state's politics ultimately distanced Gore's worldview from that of his constituents. Altogether, Gore's political rise and fall, Badger argues, illuminates the significance of race, religion, and class in the creation of the modern South.

The twelve essays in this book, some published for the first time, represent some of Tony Badger's best work in his ongoing examination of how white liberal southern politicians who came to prominence in the New Deal and World War II handled the race issue when it became central to politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s thought a new generation of southerners would wrestle Congress back from the conservatives. Political scientists such as V. O. Key Jr. thought the collapse of segregation would herald a new liberal class in the South. The Supreme Court thought that responsible southern leaders would lead their communities to general school desegregation after the Brown decision. John F. Kennedy believed that moderate southern leaders would, with government support, facilitate peaceful racial change. Badger's writings demonstrate how all of these hopes were misplaced. Badger shows that time and time again that moderates did not control southern politics. Southern liberal politicians for the most part were paralyzed by their fear that ordinary southerners were all-too-aroused by the threat of integration and were reluctant to offer a coherent alternative to the conservative strategy of resistance. Indeed, liberal politicians became irrelevant in the 1960s as African Americans and the federal government dictated the timetable of racial change. It was southern business leaders and a new generation of New South politicians who mediated the transition to desegregation.