Michigan Historical Review

Book Reviews 155 Paul Pierson and Theda Skocpol, eds. The Transformation ofAmerican Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. 324. Figures. Illustrations. Index. Notes. References. Tables. Cloth, $24.95. This smart collection of essays, unlike most such compilations, is as coherent as the tide advertises. The book's two central subjects?how the United States government grew in size and power since the 1960s, and how the ascendant conservative movement evolved alongside and eventually took control of the activist state?ground every chapter. The book has many merits, but it is perhaps most useful in the myriad ways in which it counters the conventional wisdom of our know-nothing political punditry, such as the specious notion that the two main political parties are plastic in their openness to the changing demands of their constituencies. The authors of this book adhere, rather, to a more historical view of parties as established entities with priorities that are not easily reversed. Pierson and Skocpol, the editors, persistendy assert that they and their coauthors take a "long view," an important point (even though historians will smirk at the notion that forty years is a "long view"). In their introductory chapter, Pierson and Skocpol argue that the contemporary political landscape reflects how liberal activists in the Democratic coalition severed grass-roots ties to the rank-and-file beginning in the 1960s, preferring instead a top-down approach that encouraged them to target affluent citizens. As economic disparities spiked, political inequality was exacerbated. Andrea Louise Campbell, in her chapter on shifting voting blocs, illustrates that Republicans leveraged this trend much better than did Democrats. It is helpful to be "the party of the affluent in an increasingly money-dominated system" (p. 69). The idea that Republicans more ably took advantage of Democratic reforms?a nice illustration of unintended consequences?is fundamental to Julian Zelizer's chapter on how conservatives seized the nation's legislative reins. In the 1970s Democrats dismanded the congressional "committee system"?an arrangement that allowed the legislative process to be dominated by committee chairs?and replaced it with a decentralized process. Republicans, as the minority party, benefited from this by implementing a strategy of obstructionism devised by Newt Gingrich?a strategy impossible under the old system, when committee chairs could have silenced minority legislators with litde seniority. This eventually led the Republicans to take over the House and the Senate in 1994. 156 Michigan Historical Review The conservative movement also enjoyed success by exploiting the ways in which the activist state alienated many Americans. As Steven Teles explains in a chapter on how conservatism mobilized against entrenched liberalism, opposition to liberal judicial activism?born of the sixties "rights revolution"?held together conservatives with litde else in common, including businessmen disturbed by increased regulation, urban white ethnics opposed to school busing, and evangelicals angered by legalized abortion and a ban on school prayer. Similarly, by the 1980s the Republican Party's tax-cutting policies attracted a growing number of Americans who no longer saw the government through the same positive lens as did their parents, who had likely been beneficiaries of the G.I. Bill or some other redistributive government program. With that in mind, Pierson and Jacob Hacker demonstrate that George W. Bush's tax cuts, meant to redistribute wealth upwards while handcuffing future legislators in their ability to either reverse the cuts or pay for social programs, lacked widespread support and were only achieved through manipulation and trickery. Hacker and Pierson's chapter, along with the rest of this book, is intellectual reinforcement for those who wish to restore a fairer, more just political system. Andrew Hartman Illinois State University James Schmiechen. Raising the Roof: A History of the Buildings and Architecture in the Saugatuck and Douglas Area. Rev. ed. Douglas, Mich.: Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society, 2006. Pp. 178. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $55.00. For the revised edition of this handsomely designed and lavishly illustrated survey of the Saugatuck and Douglas area, James Schmiechen has produced a worthy volume geared toward the interests of the preservation community. In seven chapters arranged chronologically, Schmiechen considers the residential architecture of the two towns...