Attuned to the contemporary popular mood of uncertainty and unhappiness, this text addresses the legacy of two decades of disillusionment in the American political culture. In a series of essays, it traces the long, slow unravelling of the economic and social fabric of the USA as a narrative thread through the historical passage from Jimmy Carter to Newt Gingrich. Seeking the complicated human stories that underlie quantitative measures of electoral victory or defeat, the book recognizes and comments on such trends as the deterioration of the traditional American spirit of commonality and confidence, the widening distrust of government and disaffiliation from the major political parties, and the increasing divisiveness of ongoing arguments of culturual self-definition. Each presidential contest is portrayed as a dramatic occasion for choice between contrived yet potent political polarities, and each is analyzed as a partial and temporary catharsis of the passions of political change. From Carter to Clinton, it chronicles the electoral history that set the stage for the congressional election of 1994. The author places that result in perspective as a signpost toward the looming cultural confrontation of 1996.
