Overview

From the Revolution through the Civil Rights Movement, Americans mobilized against political, social, and economic privilege. But over the last half-century that political will has vanished. In The Age of Acquiescence, Steve Fraser explains why. His account of national transformation brilliantly examines the rise of American capitalism, the visionary attempts to protect the democratic commonwealth, and the great surrender to today's delusional fables of freedom and the politics of fear. Effervescent and razorsharp, The Age of Acquiescence is indispensable for understanding why we no longer fight for a more just society, and how we can revive the great American tradition of resistance in our own time.

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Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE PAPERBACK: The current economic chasm in American society amounts to what Fraser sees as a reprisal of the Gilded Age, with a difference: 200 years ago, in--equality mobilized citizens to protest, while today that impulse has stalled. Fraser investigates why. --New York Times Book Review, Paperback Row PRAISE FOR THE HARDCOVER: Fascinating. --Naomi Klein, New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) Fraser longs for the passion and force with which Americans of earlier generations attacked aggregated power. --Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Provocative... A perceptive reading of the current zeitgeist. --Michael Kazin, Slate Fraser offers a sweeping, forcefully argued comparison between, on the one hand, the economy, ideology, and politics of the first Gilded Age and, on the other, the contemporary political scene. --Kim Phillips-Fein, Atlantic Fraser is our preeminent historian of America as a capitalist civilization. No one is more attuned to the inner vibrations of our monied culture...[he writes] a prose of sinuous beauty. --Corey Robin, Salon Fraser is particularly passionate and penetrating in his analysis of our present state of submission and surrender. --Jon Wiener, Los Angeles Times Delivered with real verve... Like Marx in the Communist Manifesto and Thomas Piketty's Capital, but from an American perspective, Fraser writes majestically if not almost poetically about the making of capitalism. --Harvey J. Kaye, Daily Beast Vivid...brilliantly document[s]...the long-term undermining of popular sovereignty and its replacement by the sovereignty of organized money over an atomized, impotent populace...stellar...packs a punch...unlike most of his academic and Marxist predecessors, he writes lively prose and furnishes much colorful detail... Fraser's narrative is fast-paced and broad-gauged. --George Scialabba, Nation Fraser's cultural critique is refreshingly unfashionable. For decades, American historians have emphasized the agency of consumers, their alleged ability to transform consumption into an autonomous, maybe even resistant gesture. Fraser refuses to play this game... Fraser challenges the discourse of inevitability by reminding us that things were different once, and might be again --Jackson Lears, London Review of Books Fraser's chapter on 'the political economy of auto-cannibalism,' with its relentless, horrifying litany of statistical evidence of the wreckage, is alone worth the price of the book... Fraser provocatively suggests that the last vestiges of 19th century reactionary radicalism are to be found in the Tea Party...rich scholarship...persuasive... He has admirably made accessible to a wide readership a narrative that would not meet with the approval of most local school boards. --Christian Century [An] important new book... Fraser is one of the great historians of both American capital and labor over the past thirty years. He has written foundational books on both the labor movement during the first half of the twentieth century and Wall Street... The Age of Acquiescence is an arresting and sobering account of what must be called the rise and fall of class struggle in the United States... His writing is also often beautiful, a combination of compressed aphoristic power and soaring imagery... Fraser thrillingly tells this story of exploitation and resistance --Dissent Fraser leads the reader on a fascinating and relevant journey. --Brian Tanguay, Santa Barbara Independent A cutting study of how American workers lost the will to battle for their well-being. It took decades to get ourselves into this mess. It's going to take decades to get out of it. Fraser makes that all too clear in a book that deserves to spark a national conversation. --Michael Causey, Washington Independent Review of Books The Age of Acquiescence is an engaging, thoughtful, and, at times, inspirational read. Through past examples of resistance, Fraser demonstrates that other avenues are available to us, even though they might be relics of the past. It's not inconsequential that this past wave of resistance came at a time of the American frontier's closing. Now, when it seems that all other horizons are off limits, that there is no other choice but what's before us, Fraser reminds us that it wasn't always so, nor should it be. --Bookslut.com Important... [H]as spurred a useful discussion. --laprogressive.com The great strength of the book is its detailed accounts of levels of both working class resistance and acquiescence to an aggressive capitalist class before and after the 1930s and 1940s... Fraser's reconstruction of the myriad forms of opposition in the period before the 1930s is a welcome alternative to the all too common notion that the US working class lacked a tradition of class warfare. --NewSocialist.org A sharp-edged, completely fascinating look at American history and the contemporary politics of the haves and have-nots. --Vanessa Bush, Booklist Fraser's work shines as an angry but cogent denouncement of America's growing wealth disparity. Highly recommended. --Library Journal An absorbing, vigorous account of class politics...an excellent, very readable recreation of an authentically American form of working-class militancy and its eclipse. --Publishers Weekly No one writing history today does it with the power, passion, insight, and rigor of Steve Fraser. In The Age of Acquiescence, Fraser reaches back a century to the first Gilded Age and then pushes forward into our own Gilded Age, providing his readers with a history that matters, that informs, and that, most critically, raises essential questions we should all be asking about wealth, power, and inequalities in America today. --David Nasaw, author of The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy Steve Fraser is that rare writer who combines a deep knowledge of history with a penetrating analysis of our current political and social condition. Here, in the lively prose that marks all his writing, he probes the similarities and differences between America's two gilded ages--the late nineteenth-century and today--offering provocative observations about why the first produced massive popular resistance and the second resigned acquiescence. --Eric Foner, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery Over the last few years, there's been a wealth of books describing our new Gilded Age and bemoaning the extreme economic inequality that now defines modern America. Steve Fraser's fascinating The Age of Acquiescence is indispensable because it explains how that happened, how America's long standing opposition to concentrated wealth was defeated. Steve Fraser, in other words, is Thomas Piketty with politics, providing a crucial guide in helping the ninety-nine percent understand the terms of their defeat and, more importantly, how it can once again go on the offensive. --Greg Grandin, author of The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World and Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City A splendid and illuminating book. Fraser's writing is clear-headed and free of cant. I know of no better an accounting for the division of America over the last forty years into a minority of the terrified rich and a majority of the humiliated poor. --Lewis Lapham, editor of Lapham's Quarterly and author of Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration Steve Fraser has given us a sweeping account of the economic and cultural changes in American society that combined to create an earlier era of working class struggle and hope, and then in our present moment have generated quiescence and despair. Read this book for its synoptic account of the ways that cultural manipulation have accompanied intensifying economic exploitation. But read it also to snatch glimmers of a better future from the past. --Frances Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America

Fascinating. Naomi Klein, New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) Fraser longs for the passion and force with which Americans of earlier generations attacked aggregated power. Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Provocative.... A perceptive reading of the current zeitgeist. Michael Kazin, Slate Fraser offers a sweeping, forcefully argued comparison between, on the one hand, the economy, ideology, and politics of the first Gilded Age and, on the other, the contemporary political scene. Kim Phillips-Fein, Atlantic Fraser is our preeminent historian of America as a capitalist civilization. No one is more attuned to the inner vibrations of our monied culture...[he writes] a prose of sinuous beauty. Corey Robin, Salon Fraser is particularly passionate and penetrating in his analysis of our present state of submission and surrender. Jon Wiener, Los Angeles Times Delivered with real verve.... Like Marx in the Communist Manifesto and Thomas Piketty's Capital, but from an American perspective, Fraser writes majestically if not almost poetically about the making of capitalism. Harvey J. Kaye, Daily Beast Vivid...brilliantly document[s]...the long-term undermining of popular sovereignty and its replacement by the sovereignty of organized money over an atomized, impotent populace...stellar...packs a punch...unlike most of his academic and Marxist predecessors, he writes lively prose and furnishes much colorful detail.... Fraser s narrative is fast-paced and broad-gauged. George Scialabba, Nation Fraser s cultural critique is refreshingly unfashionable. For decades, American historians have emphasized the agency of consumers, their alleged ability to transform consumption into an autonomous, maybe even resistant gesture. Fraser refuses to play this game.... Fraser challenges the discourse of inevitability by reminding us that things were different once, and might be again Jackson Lears, London Review of Books Fraser's chapter on 'the political economy of auto-cannibalism, ' with its relentless, horrifying litany of statistical evidence of the wreckage, is alone worth the price of the book.... Fraser provocatively suggests that the last vestiges of 19th century reactionary radicalism are to be found in the Tea Party...rich scholarship...persuasive.... He has admirably made accessible to a wide readership a narrative that would not meet with the approval of most local school boards. Christian Century [An] important new book.... Fraser is one of the great historians of both American capital and labor over the past thirty years. He has written foundational books on both the labor movement during the first half of the twentieth century and Wall Street.... The Age of Acquiescence is an arresting and sobering account of what must be called the rise and fall of class struggle in the United States.... His writing is also often beautiful, a combination of compressed aphoristic power and soaring imagery.... Fraser thrillingly tells this story of exploitation and resistance Dissent Fraser leads the reader on a fascinating and relevant journey. Brian Tanguay, Santa Barbara Independent A cutting study of how American workers lost the will to battle for their well-being. It took decades to get ourselves into this mess. It's going to take decades to get out of it. Fraser makes that all too clear in a book that deserves to spark a national conversation. Michael Causey, Washington Independent Review of Books The Age of Acquiescence is an engaging, thoughtful, and, at times, inspirational read. Through past examples of resistance, Fraser demonstrates that other avenues are available to us, even though they might be relics of the past. It's not inconsequential that this past wave of resistance came at a time of the American frontier's closing. Now, when it seems that all other horizons are off limits, that there is no other choice but what's before us, Fraser reminds us that it wasn't always so, nor should it be. Bookslut.com Important.... [H]as spurred a useful discussion. laprogressive.com The great strength of the book is its detailed accounts of levels of both working class resistance and acquiescence to an aggressive capitalist class before and after the 1930s and 1940s.... Fraser's reconstruction of the myriad forms of opposition in the period before the 1930s is a welcome alternative to the all too common notion that the US working class lacked a tradition of class warfare. NewSocialist.org A sharp-edged, completely fascinating look at American history and the contemporary politics of the haves and have-nots. Vanessa Bush, Booklist Fraser's work shines as an angry but cogent denouncement of America's growing wealth disparity. Highly recommended. Library Journal An absorbing, vigorous account of class politics....an excellent, very readable recreation of an authentically American form of working-class militancy and its eclipse. Publishers Weekly No one writing history today does it with the power, passion, insight, and rigor of Steve Fraser. In The Age of Acquiescence, Fraser reaches back a century to the first Gilded Age and then pushes forward into our own Gilded Age, providing his readers with a history that matters, that informs, and that, most critically, raises essential questions we should all be asking about wealth, power, and inequalities in America today. David Nasaw, author of The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy Steve Fraser is that rare writer who combines a deep knowledge of history with a penetrating analysis of our current political and social condition. Here, in the lively prose that marks all his writing, he probes the similarities and differences between America's two gilded agesthe late nineteenth-century and todayoffering provocative observations about why the first produced massive popular resistance and the second resigned acquiescence. Eric Foner, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery Over the last few years, there's been a wealth of books describing our new Gilded Age and bemoaning the extreme economic inequality that now defines modern America. Steve Fraser's fascinating The Age of Acquiescence is indispensable because it explains how that happened, how America's long standing opposition to concentrated wealth was defeated. Steve Fraser, in other words, is Thomas Piketty with politics, providing a crucial guide in helping the ninety-nine percent understand the terms of their defeat and, more importantly, how it can once again go on the offensive. Greg Grandin, author of The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World and Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City A splendid and illuminating book. Fraser's writing is clear-headed and free of cant. I know of no better an accounting for the division of America over the last forty years into a minority of the terrified rich and a majority of the humiliated poor. Lewis Lapham, editor of Lapham's Quarterly and author of Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration Steve Fraser has given us a sweeping account of the economic and cultural changes in American society that combined to create an earlier era of working class struggle and hope, and then in our present moment have generated quiescence and despair. Read this book for its synoptic account of the ways that cultural manipulation have accompanied intensifying economic exploitation. But read it also to snatch glimmers of a better future from the past. Frances Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America

Author Information

Steve Fraser is the author of Every Man a Speculator and Wall Street, among other books, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and The Nation. He lives in New York City.

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