| Book Review | The Michigan Historical Review, 34.2

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| Book Review | The Michigan Historical Review, 34.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Reviews

Paul Pierson and Theda Skocpol, eds. The Transformation of American 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 title 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.

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