Book Reviews

While this thesis offers an illuminating analysis of America's political development, White is sometimes guilty of overstating the impact of the cold war in relation to other shaping issues. He makes much of the 1950 mid-term congressional elections as the harbinger of the cold war political order, but historians like Richard Fried have shown more complex factors were at work. The most famous Democratic casualty in 1950, one targeted by Joseph McCarthy, was Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas of Illinois, whose downfall was largely due to voter disaffection with corruption in the Cook County Democratic Party with the result that Chicago did not deliver the kind of hefty majority needed to offset traditional Republican strength downstate. Similarly, while no one would question the importance of cold war issues to Ronald Reagan's election as president in 1980, it is at least a matter of debate as to whether Jimmy Carter's dismal economic record was a more significant factor. In other words, there are grounds for claiming that the collapse of the New Deal tradition was instrumental in the Democrats' loss of the presidency. To White, George Bush's fate as a successful commander-in-chief turfed from office was a product of post-coldwar politics since it had become possible for the economy to have unchallenged primacy as a political issue. Nevertheless, it is difficult to think of a party being shielded by national security issues from the political consequences of economic failure in the cold war era, as the Republicans discovered in 1960 and 1976. Perhaps the cold war is best seen as one (rather than 'the') shaping influence upon US politics from the late 1940s to the early 1990s, a constant factor but not always dominant, sharing the limelight with issues like prosperity, race and culture. Its influence continues to mould present-day American politics. Bob Dole's ill-fated 1996 presidential campaign was a hangover of the old politics, but the new politics characterized by absence of a common communist enemy has seen Democrats and Republicans turn on each other. Partisan rhetoric has grown increasingly polarized and personalized, making political compromise more difficult. To White, this is a regrettable but temporary development, as America comes to terms with understanding that its problems cannot be attributed to a foreign enemy but lie within itself. His important book deserves a wide readership and contributes substantially to our understanding of the past, present and future of American politics.