THE NEWEST York Times bestselling author from the Forgotten Man and Coolidge offers a stunning revision of our last great period of idealism, the 1960s, with burning relevance for our contemporary challenges.

‘Great Society is definitely accurate history that reads like a book, within the high hopes and catastrophic missteps of our well-meaning leaders.’ -Alan Greenspan

Today, a fight rages in our nation. Many Us citizens are attracted to socialism and about Great Society: A New History economic redistribution while competitors of those ideas argue for purer capitalism. In the 1960s, Americans wanted the same goals many look for now: an end to poverty, higher standards of living for the center class, an improved environment and more access to health care and education. Then, too, we debated socialism and capitalism, public sector reform versus personal sector advancement. Time and again, whether under John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, or Richard Nixon, the united states chose the public sector. The targets of our idealism demonstrated elusive. What’s more, Johnson’s and Nixon’s applications shackled an incredible number of family members in permanent federal government dependence. Ironically, Shlaes argues, the costs of entitlement commitments produced a half hundred years ago preclude the reforms that Us citizens will need in coming years.

In Great Society, Shlaes offers a robust companion to her legendary history of the 1930s, The Forgotten Man, and implies that in fact there is scant difference between two presidents we consider opposites: Johnson and Nixon. Just like technocratic military planning by “the very best and the Brightest” produced failure in Vietnam inevitable, so planning by a team of the domestic greatest and brightest guaranteed fiasco in the home. At once history and biography, Great Culture sketches moving portraits of the characters within this transformative period, from U.S. Presidents to the visionary UAW leader Walter Reuther, the founders of Intel, and Federal government Reserve chairmen William McChesney Martin and Arthur Melts away. Great Culture casts fresh light on various other figures as well, from Ronald Reagan, after that governor of California, towards the socialist Michael Harrington and the protest movement innovator Tom Hayden. Drawing on her traditional economic knowledge and deep historical understanding, Shlaes upends the original narrative of the era, offering a damning indictment of the consequences of thoughtless idealism with striking relevance for today. Great Culture catches a dramatic competition with lessons both dark and shiny for our own time.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.