Description: Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty has long been portrayed as the most potent symbol of all that is wrong with big government. Examining the long War on Poverty from the 1960s onward, this book makes a controversial argument that the programs were in many ways a success.
Brief description: KENT B. GERMANY, a native of Louisiana and former resident of New Orleans, is Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. Previously he was Deputy Director of the Presidential Recordings Program and director of the LBJ Project at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. He is co-host of "For The Record," a PBS program on politics and history, and is coeditor of two books about Lyndon Johnson and the 1960s: The Kennedy Assassination and the Transfer of Power and Toward the Great Society.
Review Quotes:
Makes an extremely significant intervention into several literatures--on social movements, on domestic policy, and on local government and power structures. It shares both a strong point of view and a clear commitment not to oversimplify or romanticize the grassroots activism it depicts, and this combination makes it convincing and, at times, gripping. The fact that the book treats civil rights activism among Mexican Americans, Indians, and Asian Americans is particularly attractive.
--Linda Gordon "winner of the Bancroft Prize for Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits"