Julian E. Zelizer

A biography of the rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who became a symbol of the marriage between religion and social justice “When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” So said Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) of his involvement in the 1965 Selma civil rights march alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Heschel, who spoke with a...

The sociologist Daniel Bell was an uncommonly acute observer of the structural forces transforming the United States and other advanced societies in the twentieth century. The titles of Bell's major books—The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)—became hotly debated frameworks for understanding the era when they were published. In...

In this fully updated second edition of their masterful history, leading historians and best-selling authors Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer uncover the origins of our current moment, answering the question: When—and how—did America become so polarized? It all starts in 1974 with the Watergate crisis, the OPEC oil embargo, desegregation, busing riots in Boston, and the wind-down of...

Two award-winning historians explore the origins of a divided America. In the middle of the 1970s, America entered a new era of doubt and division. Major political, economic, and social crises—Watergate, Vietnam, the rights revolutions of the 1960s—had cracked the existing social order. In the years that followed, the story of our own lifetimes would be written. Longstanding historical fault...

Two award-winning historians explore the origins of a divided America. In the middle of the 1970s, America entered a new era of doubt and division. Major political, economic, and social crises—Watergate, Vietnam, the rights revolutions of the 1960s—had cracked the existing social order. In the years that followed, the story of our own lifetimes would be written. Longstanding historical fault...

Contravening conventional wisdom, Zelizer offers a spirited defense of parties and partisanship. - Frances Lee, Princeton University Partisanship is a dirty word in American politics. If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it's the belief that the intense loyalty within the electorate toward Democrats and Republicans is the source of our...