What It Took to Win

October 1, 2021

A Georgetown history professor and editor of The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History, Kazin offers a history and assessment of the world's longest-running political party: the Democratic Party of the United States. He examines its successes and failures, its commitment to "moral capitalism" even though it also once supported slavery and repression, and its struggle to maintain a majority coalition as its move toward greater inclusivity have led to some people to leave owing to biased attitudes. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

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December 20, 2021
Georgetown University historian Kazin (War Against War) delivers a brisk and informative survey of the Democratic Party’s evolution from its origins in the 1820s to the present. A supporter of the party who canvassed for JFK at age 12, Kazin contends that Democrats have been most successful “when they articulated an egalitarian economic vision and advocated laws intended to fulfill it.” He details how early leaders including Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson brought together shopkeepers, slave owners, and “working-class radicals” by advocating for strict limits on federal power and appealing to “the creed of white supremacy,” and notes that the party “waver little from its racist convictions” until the 1930s, when FDR’s White House tentatively embraced an “interracial constituency” that would eventually push through groundbreaking civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Throughout, Kazin spotlights factions within the party, including Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and today’s “multiracial millennials” led by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Readers will also gain insight into lesser-known figures such as Tammany Hall boss “Honest” John Kelly and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, who helped push Democrats toward supporting government intervention in the economy in the 1890s. The result is an insightful introduction to the complex history of the “oldest mass party in the world.” Agent: Sandra Dijkstra, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

February 4, 2022

Preeminent historian Kazin (American Dreamers) draws upon decades of experience analyzing American labor, left, and populist struggles in this stylistically exemplary review of what he deems the world's oldest continuing mass political party. Kazin uses the theme of "moral capitalism," for which he credits Lizabeth Cohen--an ideology of achieving the economic goals of prosperity and security for the greatest number of people, fostered by regulated markets. The Democratic Party evolved from a propertied, white male faction to an assemblage of increasingly diverse interest groups; Kazin argues that the Democrats win at the presidential level (which is his primary focus) when they successfully articulate and implement this ideal vision. Too long on the wrong side of the fight for civil rights (for women and then for Black Americans), the party has worked to learn from history, Kazin posits. Scholarly and general readers should note that this book is intentionally not a complete history of the Democratic Party but only of its election results; it's also more focused on nationwide Democratic Party leaders than on lesser-known or anonymous members of social movements. VERDICT: This book will please Kazin's enthusiasts and win favor among new readers previously bereft of his reality-grounded ruminations.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2021
A warts-and-all history of "the oldest mass party in the world." In his latest, Kazin, a Georgetown historian and editor emeritus of Dissent, delivers a lively, timely survey whose central theme is the Democrats' two-centuries-long effort to assist ordinary working people. That theme is neither novel nor, coming from a historian of the left, surprising. Yet despite the author's Democratic favoritism--he occasionally writes in the first person--this is not an anti-Republican tract. Like Heather Cox Richardson's analogous history of the Republican Party, To Make Men Free, Kazin applies tough scrutiny and due criticism to an institution that, as early as the 1840s, was unparalleled in its electoral and institutional innovations and acceptance of popular politics. While erring in calling Thomas Jefferson's original Democratic-Republican Party a "proto-party" and ignoring earlier pioneering state-level achievements in enlarging the electorate, Kazin is on solid ground. To enliven his narrative and illustrate his arguments, he foregrounds often forgotten public figures like William Jennings Bryan (whose biography, A Godly Hero, Kazin wrote), Belle Moskowitz, Sidney Hillman, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. The author's chapter on New York politics and Tammany Hall is brilliant. He doesn't shy away from emphasizing the party's control by Southern slaveholders, starting in the days of Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and extending into the 1860s, nor the outright racism of their heirs. He also digs into the deep misogyny in party ranks and the schisms that resulted from its extraordinary, unprecedented diversity--except for the long exclusion of African Americans. Without flinching, Kazin charts the party's downward course from Franklin Roosevelt's huge 1936 election victory--"the most complete victory in the history of partisan presidential elections"--to its abject losses starting in the 1960s. As the narrative thins toward the end, arriving at the present day, the author closes with unmistakable tones of lament for the party's recent fortunes and missteps. This should be today's go-to book on its subject.

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Starred review from November 1, 2021
Kazin, Georgetown University history professor and author of War against War (2017), delivers a wonderfully detailed record of the Democratic Party, from its beginnings to the present. While chronicling "the large, protean universe of officials, candidates, and voters . . . on both the national and local levels," Kazin captures the successes and failures, personalities, and intersections with movements that continue to shape an ever-evolving nation. While noting party-defining transformations over time, Kazin honestly and forthrightly frames the party's achievements, but also its contradictions, imperfections, and blemishes, especially regarding its nascent views on slavery, women's rights, and the rights and land of Native Americans. Early on, the party's attempts both to appeal to white slave owners and to promote equal rights led to division and eventually to a crack up in 1860 when Lincoln, a Republican, was elected President. Since the early twentieth century, the party has continued to transform, aligning itself with egalitarian causes, historical growth, and positive momentum and change, like the New Deal, labor movements, equal rights, the civil rights bills of the 1960s, LGBTQIA rights, and universal healthcare. Accomplishments and flaws continue and will be debated for years to come, especially in this turbulent political climate, but Kazin's account is an unvarnished and illuminating look at the past and potential future of a political party that endures.

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