The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s

This was required reading for a graduate course in American history. The theme of Allen Matusow's book "The Unraveling of America" is as the title implies. Beginning in 1960 with the ascendancy of John F. Kennedy to the presidency, Matusow contends this was the beginning of a vast and sweeping liberalism that overtook the country, and tried to promote positives changes. However, it was this initially promising liberalism, and its subsequent fragments, divisions and internal oppositions that eventually lead to the "unraveling" of American society. (Failure of Liberalism) Matusow's intent is to prove how liberalism failed to achieve its purposes, how the efforts of liberalism began to alienate many of its adherents, and ultimately, how liberalism, while well meaning, actually fractured America. He wants to prove how liberalism, when taken to extremes, led to ghetto riots and black militancy, reluctant politicians who promised big programs but produced little change, massive drug use, crime, apathetic hippies, lack of discipline among restless and spoiled teens, all of this, is what Matusow terms: the unraveling of America. In summation, his purpose is to show the destructive and crippling effects of the liberalism that gripped the country from 1960-1968. (Kennedy and Johnson) Matusow deals mainly with liberalism from the years 1960, with the ascension of the liberal John F. Kennedy to the presidency, until the 1968 election, which saw the election of Richard Nixon. The early sixties were a time of far reaching aspirations for many, they were a time of change, and it was Kennedy who embodied that change. Kennedy galvanized the youth into action. Matusow illustrates that how above all else, Kennedy became a symbol to American, specifically the youth. After the stuffy years of the Eisenhower presidency, after the humiliation of Sputnik, and as an anathema to the growing racial fragmentation, Kennedy appeared to be the savior. But instead of a savior, Matusow claims America got just another politician. After Kennedy's assassination and Johnson's accession to the presidency, the " unraveling " became exacerbated. In essence, he uses Lyndon B. Johnson as an allegory of this slow decline. In the beginning of his presidency, there was great faith in him. Many rallied to his programs. The Great Society, the War on Poverty and Johnsons stand on civil rights seemed to embody the liberal platform. However, after the failure of many of his programs and the Vietnam, by the end of his presidency, his approval rating was a dismal 35%. (War on Poverty) LBJ's assault on poverty, while seemingly progressive, did not achieve much in the long run, and in some instances, actually retarded genuine attempts at reducing poverty. Many programs degenerated into a massive bureaucracy that did not aid the people it was meant for. Civil rights, while starting as a non-violent protest after the 1960 Greensboro sit-in, had degenerated into violent ghetto riots and armed ban

Reading this book about the sixties is like listening to the Beatles catalog from beginning to end; it starts out nice and sunny in the beginning and keeps getting stranger and more drugsy towards the end. Beginning with the Kennedy Camelot era, liberalism was defined as a moderate corporate liberalism that worked with the establishment to make reforms. Corporations were considered basically good by liberals because they produced wealth for most people. The blacks, however, had 51% of the wealth of white people and were largely shut out from the economic and political mainstream. Civil rights legislation began to develop during the Kennedy years and Kennedy responded in the typically foxy way of politicians trying to please two opposing camps so as to get re-elected. After Kennedy died, Johnson passed the civil rights legislation and it seemed like liberalism's greatest triumph of the decade. Johnson presided over the war on poverty, a program that he tried to make sure did not upset those who were in power by giving more power to poor people to make decisions about how they should get out of poverty. Any attempts to give power to the people were eventually worn down by the inertia of bureaucracy. The author Allen Matusow seems to have favored some form of radical wealth redistribution, instead of the conventional bureaucratic programs. There is also some discussion about economic policy of those years in the book--the mundane but important issues about how much to tax, how much to spend, how to avoid economic slumps or even collapses, and whether to listen to the economist Keynes or to Friedman. The rest of the book is an engrossing account of people going crazy with drugs, violence, sex, music, and insurrections. The roots of the counterculture are explained from the black jazz hipsters of the 30s, to the beatniks of the 50s, and to the hippies of the 60s. In the final decadent years, the radical communist left took over the political culture and intensely protested the moderate corporate liberalism of the Johnson era along with his prolongation of the war in Vietnam. The left saw itself as a movement allied with the non-white oppressed against the rich white men who controlled the world through imperialism. It is not discussed in the book whether there was any validity to the claims of such imperialism. I disagreed with the author's desire to have wealth redistribution, that old concept of giving unearned money to people to spend on whatever. It doesn't address the problem of killing the work incentive, the ablility to handle money wisely, and the innate ability or lack thereof to earn money. I thought that the black nationalism of the era had the better idea of giving blacks their own nation to live in, minus all the violent talk and actions. In fact, Lincoln had planned to give blacks their own nation after Emancipation but it was never fully accomplished. I think it would reduce infighting among groups with divergent self-interests.

A very good review of the most turbulent decade in the 20th Century. Matusow encapsulates all of the major policy areas that the government dealt with, showing successes and failures as well as his analysis of the situation. For the book's second part, he writes about the left's reactions to these moves and how the various radical groups took certain aspects and focused their discontent upon them. Overall, well-written, very readable, and gives enough detail to satisfy most basic questions the reader might have regarding the issues he covers.