The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics

This is an excellent study on the political career of George Wallace, the former Alabama Governor famed for his stand against integration in the early 1960's and his subsequent runs for the Presidency. Carter portrays Wallace as a complex individual, who seems to have been motivated from the start more by ambition than principle. The book gives an extremely well researched and readable account of Wallace's early life, his family, friendships and formative experiences. Carter attempts to show that Wallace early on became politically ambitious for the Alabama Governor's office and that he originally adopted the stance of a moderate (for the time) southern populist, going so far as to refuse to break away from the Democratic party in 1948 and supporting Truman over Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrat party. In the 1958 Alabama gubernatorial election Wallace was defeated by a more blatantly racist, segregationist opponent and vowed in a famed statement of racial epithet never to be the racial moderate in any future elections. True to his word he ran a 1962 campaign on the stance of continued defiance to federal government attempts to integrate Alabama schools and extend voting rights to the state's black population. Successfully elected, he made a national name for himself by his confrontations with the federal courts (including initially trying to defy or evade the court orders of man who had once been a good friend - Federal Judge Frank Johnson) and the Kennedy Justice Department. The book doesn't shy away from the resulting violence of some of Wallace's followers and the more extreme racist comments and actions of many of those who supported him in the 1960's. I think Carter makes a good case that by his disregard for federal law enforcement agencies and civil rights protesters that Wallace in some degree bore some of the responsibility for the actions of the more extreme and violent of those opposed to integration and expanded civil rights for black citizens. Carter also provides great detail into minds of the inner circle of those men who managed Wallace's candidacy in his state and later national campaigns for President, including talented speechwriter but also violent racist Klansman Asa Carter (no relation to the author), who would later become famous as the author of the historical novel that inspired the Clint Eastwood movie "The Outlaw Josey Wales". Biographer Carter's premise is that by Wallace's strong showings in the presidential elections of 1968 and 1972 (before he was derailed by an assassination attempt) that Wallace succeeded in moving the national political debate to the right, especially in the area of social policies and politics. Carter has gone on record in other books and speeches as trying to link the Republican policies of welfare reform, re-examination of affirmative action policies and anti-crime legislation as being directly descended from Wallace's bigoted early campaigns. While I think he stretches the point I

In this book, Dan Carter provides a wonderfully insightful examination of a man who perhaps more than any other has defined the course of contemporary American politics. An ambitious man from the start, Carter shows how Wallace tapped the growing uneasiness of many voters towards the profound changes taking place in American society after World War II, using it to win the governorship of Alabama as a defender of segregation. Though Wallace ultimately failed in his subsequent quest for the presidency on a similar platform, his campaigns introduced themes and tactics that would become staples of postwar American politics. In this passionate yet objective account, Carter succeeds in helping the reader understand both the man and what his candidacies represented, as well as their lasting effects on the nation.

Every year I teach this book for about 125 undergraduates in a course called "Race and American Politics from the New Deal to the New Right." Though it is a course that welcomes controversy, one thing that virtually all of my students agree upon is that this is a GREAT book. Carter, the dean of Southern historians, is a masterful storyteller with a matchless eye for detail and a balanced political judgment. He shows how Wallace, far from being just another Southern demogogue, opens the way to the transformation of American politics and the rise of a new conservatism whose wellsprings are the rage and fear of white Americans in the face of the civil rights revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s. It's a brilliant, absorbing book and every year when I read it again I am struck by the rich craft of Carter's prose and the deep thoughtfulness of his assessments.

George Wallace was not an evil man, just an opportunist. He was a liberal on racial issues until he lost his first race for the Alabama governorship because of race baiting. Carter relates these surprising facts and documents how Wallace's brand of conservatism became adopted by mainstream candidates such as Ronald Reagan and also how an assassain's bullet pushed him toward that path of asking for redemption from the very people he had previously villified. Carter is an excellent biographer, and "The Politics of Rage," is well worthy of its subject.

this book served as the springboard for investigating southern politics since 1965 for a graduate southern history seminar. one can only sit and marvel at the job carter does in discussing this very topic. it is not just the story of southern politics, but the tale of the "southernization of america." carter enters this academic debate, southernization vs. americanization, feet first and holds wallace up as the forbearer of reaganism and gingrichism. this will remain the authoritative account on this matter for some years. it is extremely hard, due to the solid scholarship, to argue with carter. some may want to say what about goldwater, but that is a difficult case to make. goldwater claimed the republican party no longer spoke his language once wallaceism entered the rhetoric. carter has refered to wallace as a "redneck poltergeist" and virginia durr believed wallace held so much promise, but was dismayed by wallace continuing his "politics of rage." a tellling read of this character that was geo. wallace. wallace is placed beside huey long as the most compelling political figure of the 20th century. and rightly so. a thorough study of southern, or american, history is incomplete without having read this book. this book stands with carter's scottsboro in terms of importance.