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| The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America | 
 enlarge | Author: Ronald Brownstein
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $5.58
You Save: $22.37 (80%)
New (12) Used (9) from $5.42
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.6
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931
Publication Date: November 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SHIPS SAME DAY
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 13 | | NEXT » |
 Thought provoking, impeccably researched and argued September 29, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Why is is so difficult for Congress or the President of the United States to get anything done? Why is it that our elected leaders cannot tackle so many of the deep and important challenges facing the nation? Journalist Ron Brownstein attempts to answer these important questions in this provocative and illuminating book.
Full disclosure: I know the author. We both covered national politics, he for the Los Angeles Times and I for Reuters in the 1996 and 2000 presidential race. We were friendly but and not personal friends, although, I deeply respect his judgment and talent.
Brownstein argues that partisan politics have become so bitter, toxic and divisive that neither party has any interest in cooperating with the other even when the national interest demands it. Both parties have become beholden to their political bases which have become bitterly antagonistic, professing loyalty to widely divergent cultural values. Yet, in order to get anything done, it remains necessary to build bipartisan coalitions. It may be possible to narrowly win elections based primarily on energizing the base, as Bush did in 2004, but when important national challenges loom, a president who has not reached out to the other party invariably finds it impossible to govern effectively on the shaky basis of such a narrow majority.
In an exhaustive historic review, Brownstein goes through previous periods of American history. The Republicans from the 1890s to 1929, governed in a similar way -- and were turned out of power after they were blamed for the Great Depression for decades. In the 1940s and 1950s, both sides reached out more to the center, forming bipartisan coalitions. In those days both parties were much more diverse than today. There were southern Democrats who were more conservative than many Republicans and moderate Republicans more liberal than many Democrats. Was this a golden age of bipartisan cooperation? Hardly -- the southern Democrats were mainly concerned with preserving their racist, exclusionary Jim Crow society.
In analyzing our current predicament, Brownstein puts most blame on the Republicans -- Gingrich, Tom DeLay and the Bush-Karl Rove team who set out deliberately to exclude Democrats from power and to rule for the benefit of their own narrow segment of society. Democrats, in order to survive, had to respond in kind and themselves have become tougher, less willing to compromise and more interested in frustrating the other side than cooperating to do the nation's business.
But history teaches that a party that governs for the benefit of the few eventually awakens the wrath of the many. The pendulum always swings -- as it is about to do again.
For more about me and my latest book The Nazi Hunter: A Novelgo to www.alanelsner.com.
 Interesting But Disappointing April 13, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Brownstein's book provides a wealth of detail and some really interesting US political history for a little over a century. The book is well researched, at least in a historical sense. I don't believe he absolutely proves his case that partisanship is the worst that it has ever been because it has clearly been very bad in the past. Unfortunately, though I believe Brownstein tried very hard for impartiality, his bias, perhaps unwitting, shows through. Republicans are nearly always excessive and provocative, Democrats are nearly always only responding to Republican over reach. Democrat solutions are almost always conveyed as the only realistic ones. To be fair, he doesn't completely whitewash Democrats, it's more a matter of scale. As to be expected, he gives major media a pass for the most part, while indicting Fox for partisanship. Even so, I would have give the book four stars instead of three simply because of the useful information it contains and the fact that it's well written. But when the 'Fairness' doctrine is offered up as one of the solutions to the problem that was a real crippler. Any objective observer knows that there is no problem with people's access to opposing points of view, the only problem is that the liberal left for decades had almost total control of the media and they simply can't accept that the right now has at least a semblance of a public voice. Too bad the LA Times mentality showed through in the end.
 Must read for political junkies March 24, 2008
Ron Brownstein provides an excellent historical context for how we have come full circle to again embrace extreme polarization in our political system. He leaves the judgment to the reader as to whether this is someting we should decry or embrace for a great portion of the book and then postulates a rational critique as to what this does to the system and potentially how it might be overcome. This book is not for those for whom history is a mystery, but is for those who understand how politics is an everchanging and dynamic system and that we are at a point where we must decide if, at this critical time, can accept continuing gridlock.
phenomenal masterpiece but dry March 5, 2008
i have to say that this book is extremely well documented. it is well written. it offers hope and pragmatic possible solutions for many of the problems our nation faces in the next 20 years. it is also one of the driest books that i've read in the past year or two, falling asleep or shifting to something different after a dozen pages or so ... it's captivating, but, well, simply dry. well worth the read and the price, new. it is an excellent book that, i wish, more politicians and decision-makers would read, especially the last half of the book. thank you for this masterpiece!
must read February 21, 2008
A great book that is rather right down the middle. It does a great job of covering the history of politics back to the early 1900s while still focusing on the recent dynamics. Clearly a lot of Bush and Clinton references but it does a good job of removing bias.
A definite eye-opener.
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