Overview
How did Americans come to elect Barack Obama—and then Donald Trump? Those choices capture what Paul Starr calls the American contradiction. The whole truth about America, Starr argues in this new history of the United States since the 1950s, has never been contained in one consistent set of values or interests. Our nation was born in the contradiction between freedom and slavery. Today it is beset by a contradiction between a changing people and a resisting nation, a nation with entrenched institutions that have empowered those who fear the changes and look to restore an old America of their imagining. Starr tells this history from the dual standpoints of the progressive movements that changed the American people and of the movements that emerged in response. Black Americans, he argues, served as a model minority, setting in motion America's twentieth-century revolutions in gender as well as race and rights. With industry's decline and the rise of economic inequality, millions of Americans have felt dispossessed and want the old America back. Trump is their revenge. American Contradiction tells the story of how 1950s America became the almost unrecognizable America of the 2020s.
Reviews
“Paul Starr, one of the great chroniclers of American institutions, provides a brilliant reinterpretation of the modern political era. His book unpacks the fundamental contradictions that have haunted the body politic since the 1960s. A country born in contraction between slavery and freedom has remained at odds with itself even as the issues changed. The bold attack by the progressive project on hierarchical institutions produced an equally fierce counterattack by those who wanted to restore an imagined earlier era. American Contradiction teaches us how, far from being an anomaly, the election of Donald Trump twice to the presidency was a result of deeply-rooted political forces that had been steadily gaining strength within the Republican Party for decades. This is a must-read book for sociologists, historians, political scientists, and any reader interested in our nation’s political history.”—Julian Zelizer, Princeton University, and author of In Defense of Partisanship “American Contradiction is an extraordinarily instructive analysis of the perplexing character of the United States. Starr’s commentary on the journey from Eisenhower to Trump bristles with insight. As I read, I found myself constantly underlining his informative and accessible text.”—Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School “Anything Paul Starr writes is important to read, and this book is no exception. American Contradiction is a highly sophisticated history of the United States since the 1950s emphasizing the interplay between social movements, politics, culture, law, and social policy.”—Nelson Lichtenstein, author of A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism “A fascinating examination of the clash between changing family, gender, and sexual norms, racial justice struggles, rightwing political campaigns, and accelerating economic inequality that underlies our current political crises. Eye-opening.”—Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
“Paul Starr, one of the great chroniclers of American institutions, provides a brilliant reinterpretation of the modern political era. His book unpacks the fundamental contradictions that have haunted the body politic since the 1960s. A country born in contraction between slavery and freedom has remained at odds with itself even as the issues changed. The bold attack by the progressive project on hierarchical institutions produced an equally fierce counterattack by those who wanted to restore an imagined earlier era. American Contradiction teaches us how, far from being an anomaly, the election of Donald Trump twice to the presidency was a result of deeply-rooted political forces that had been steadily gaining strength within the Republican Party for decades. This is a must-read book for sociologists, historians, political scientists, and any reader interested in our nation’s political history.”—Julian Zelizer, Princeton University, and author of In Defense of Partisanship
“Paul Starr, one of the great chroniclers of American institutions, provides a brilliant reinterpretation of the modern political era. His book unpacks the fundamental contradictions that have haunted the body politic since the 1960s. A country born in contraction between slavery and freedom has remained at odds with itself even as the issues changed. The bold attack by the progressive project on hierarchical institutions produced an equally fierce counterattack by those who wanted to restore an imagined earlier era. American Contradiction teaches us how, far from being an anomaly, the election of Donald Trump twice to the presidency was a result of deeply-rooted political forces that had been steadily gaining strength within the Republican Party for decades. This is a must-read book for sociologists, historians, political scientists, and any reader interested in our nation’s political history.”—Julian Zelizer, Princeton University, and author of In Defense of Partisanship “American Contradiction is an extraordinarily instructive analysis of the perplexing character of the United States. Starr’s commentary on the journey from Eisenhower to Trump bristles with insight. As I read, I found myself constantly underlining his informative and accessible text.”—Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School “Anything Paul Starr writes is important to read, and this book is no exception. American Contradiction is a highly sophisticated history of the United States since the 1950s emphasizing the interplay between social movements, politics, culture, law, and social policy.”—Nelson Lichtenstein, author of A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism
Author Information
Paul Starr is professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and founding coeditor of the American Prospect magazine. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction and Bancroft Prize in American History for The Social Transformation of American Medicine. Over a half-century he has written essays and op‑eds for newspapers and magazines as well as books on America’s institutions, history, and politics.
