Building a Democratic Political Order: Reshaping American Liberalism in the 1930s and 1940s

by David Plotke

Building A Democratic Political Order explores the dramatic changes in American politics that occurred during the 1930s and 1940s--including the growth of the federal government, the emergence of a new labor movement, the Cold War and domestic anti-Communism, and the opening of national political debate about civil rights. Democratic progressive liberalism recast American political institutions and discourses in ways that went well beyond what was expected in the early 1930s, and in forms strong enough to endure for several decades after Roosevelt's death.

402 pages, Hardcover

First published April 26, 1996

About the author

David Plotke is Professor of Politics at The New School for Social Research. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.