Overview

In What It Took to Win, the eminent historian Michael Kazin identifies and assesses the Democratic Party's long-running commitment to creating moral capitalism--a system that mixed entrepreneurial freedom with the welfare of workers and consumers. And yet the same party that championed the rights of the white working man also vigorously protected or advanced the causes of slavery, segregation, and Indian removal. As the party evolved towards a more inclusive egalitarian vision, it won durable victories for Americans of all backgrounds. But it also struggled to hold together a majority coalition and advance a persuasive agenda for the use of government. Kazin traces the party's fortunes through vivid character sketches of its key thinkers and doers, from Martin Van Buren and William Jennings Bryan to the financier August Belmont and reformers such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Sidney Hillman, and Jesse Jackson. He also explores the records of presidents from Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Throughout, Kazin reveals the rich interplay of personality, belief, strategy, and policy that define the life of the party--and outlines the core components of a political endeavor that may allow President Biden and his co-partisans to renew the American experiment.

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Reviews

[A] shrewd and very absorbing history. -- New York Times Book Review [A] very fine new history of the Democrats. -- New Republic [He] brings the care of a scholar to a big subject, but he also has a storyteller's gift for making it accessible. -- Los Angeles Times [Kazin's] chapter on New York politics and Tammany Hall is brilliant...This should be today's go-to book on its subject. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) His book exhorts Democrats to reacquaint themselves with their past battles against entrenched wealth and on behalf of ordinary people. -- The Atlantic Well researched [and] accessible. -- The Economist (London)

Author Information

Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University and editor emeritus of Dissent. His books include American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation, The Populist Persuasion, and A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and editor of The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History. Lee Goettl resides in the Midwest with his wife, daughter, and three dogs, enjoying all things book-related. He has recorded over eighty audiobooks, including playing two characters in Seth Rogen's Yearbook. He also works as a voice artist for commercials, e-learning, and medical narration.

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