JOE MERTON

Norrell

Sitkoff

Skrentny

Steinberg

Merton, Joe

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Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning while losing: civil rights, the conservative movement and the presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95. Pp. 304; 978-0-8130-4908-3)

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Merton, Joe (2014) Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning while losing: civil rights, the conservative movement and the presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95. Pp. 304; 978-0-8130-4908-3). Journal of American Studies, 48 (4). pp. 1120-1122. ISSN 1469-5154 Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43004/1/Merton%20-%20Winning%20While%20Losing%20-%20Review.pdfCopyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions.This article is made available under the University of Nottingham End User licence and may be reused according to the conditions of the licence.  For more details see: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdfA note on versions: The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact eprints@nottingham.ac.uk1Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning While Losing: Civil Rights, theConservative Movement and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville:University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95. Pp. 304; 978-0-8130-4908-3)Histories of the African-American freedom struggle have typically presented the civil rightspolitics of the last half-century as a zero-sum game, in which the setbacks suffered by civilrights advocates have been matched, almost stride for stride, by the growing ascendancy ofpolitical conservatism.1 Kenneth Osgood and Derrick White’s new edited collection on theintersection between civil rights and an increasingly conservative executive offers a much-needed corrective to this narrative, by outlining the ‘paradox’ of ‘winning while losing’ in apost-civil rights era. Civil rights activists could still win in a period of conservativegovernance and electoral predominance, the book argues, only in narrower, more limitedterms. Equally, conservatives’ attempts to limit or roll back those victories were oftenresisted, or even thwarted, in a landscape transformed by the civil rights revolution of the1960s. Such a paradox explains why we can celebrate the achievement of formal and politicalequality, the longevity of racially redistributive policies such as affirmative action, and thepresence of an African-American in the White House for two consecutive terms, and yet atthe same time acknowledge that Martin Luther King’s dream of socio-economic equality andan assault on the structural problems of race and racial discrimination remains as elusive andincomplete as ever.The focus of Winning While Losing is on presidential politics, and the book’s ten essays,covering nearly every presidency from Nixon to Obama (George H.W. Bush is the onlyabsentee), expertly link executive decision-making and electoral strategizing with the politicsof civil rights. They chart the redirection of civil rights advocacy away from Congress, theSupreme Court or public debate towards what Osgood and White call ‘the shadows’ – thecourts, bureaucracy and federal agencies; a trend which enabled conservatives to pack andpoliticise such institutions and thus limit or even reverse old legal precedents and definitions.They illustrate the emergence of a new conservative discourse on race, implicitly rather thanexplicitly racialised, which utilised decreasing public support for government interventionand regulation – the traditional engines of civil rights reform – to limit and restrict civil rights1 For examples, see Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill & Wang, 2008), pp. 210-236; Robert J. Norrell, The House I Live In (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 269-302; StephenSteinberg, Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy (Boston: BeaconPress, 1995).2initiatives. And they highlight the important support role played by purportedly racial liberals– from Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to a young Delaware Senator named Joseph Biden – inhelping to shape, consolidate and legitimise this discourse. Yet Winning While Losing alsorecognises the limits of the conservative ascendancy, reflecting a wider recent trend in thehistoriography of American conservatism that now argues for the ‘failed revolution’ of thepolitical Right.2 As the essays demonstrate, conservatives initiated affirmative action policiesand then failed in their attempts to reverse them, typically bowed to political pragmatismbefore political ideology, and at times even aided the expansion of “big government”, as inthe case of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. Liberalism’s surprising resilience,and a transformed, often uncertain post-civil rights polity, ensured that conservatives wereforced to compromise and innovate as often as they were able to “turn back the clock” oncivil rights.Despite its strengths, Winning While Losing is not without its omissions. First, the majority ofthe book’s coverage is given over to the cause of African-American civil rights, yet as JohnSkrentny’s work on the ‘minority rights revolution’ makes clear, from the 1970s onwardsAfrican-Americans were working in an increasingly competitive civil rights marketplace,facing challenges from Latinos, Asian-Americans, women, homosexuals, the disabled andeven ethnic whites.3 Despite some discussion of the growing appeal of the Latino vote forconservative presidents and candidates, or the contrasting fortunes of women’s rights,Winning While Losing might do more to discuss how the arrival of these competitorschallenged, defined and limited the potential civil rights gains of African-Americans in anincreasingly crowded field. Second, the international dimensions of civil rights, which grewin importance with the amplification of an African-American foreign policy voice in the1970s and 1980s, receive remarkably little coverage in the book. These are areas in whichcivil rights advocates won notable gains from conservative executives, from the 1986Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act to Bush’s anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns in Africa, yet theyare rarely addressed in these pages.Nonetheless, Winning While Losing offers valuable and much-needed insights into both thetrajectory of civil rights politics after the racial revolution of the 1960s, and the intersection2 Julian Zelizer, ‘Rethinking the History of American Conservatism’, Reviews in American History 38 (2) (June2010), pp. 367-389; Kim Phillips-Fein, ‘Conservatism: A State of the Field’, Journal of American History 98 (3)(2011), pp. 723-743.3 John Skrentny, The Minority Rights Revolution (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2002).3of that politics with the wider conservative movement against a changing political, economicand intellectual backdrop. Its essays tell stories of entrenched racial problems and difficultsolutions, ambiguous victories and unlikely obstacles; stories that are awkward and evenunpopular, certainly, but in our increasingly individualistic and unequal society, moreimportant than ever to share.Dr Joe MertonDepartment of History, University of Nottingham

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Journal of American Studies

Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning while Losing: Civil Rights, the Conservative Movement and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95). Pp. 304.<scp>isbn</scp>978 0 8130 4908 3.

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1Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning While Losing: Civil Rights, theConservative Movement and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville:University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95. Pp. 304; 978-0-8130-4908-3)Histories of the African-American freedom struggle have typically presented the civil rightspolitics of the last half-century as a zero-sum game, in which the setbacks suffered by civilrights advocates have been matched, almost stride for stride, by the growing ascendancy ofpolitical conservatism.1 Kenneth Osgood and Derrick White’s new edited collection on theintersection between civil rights and an increasingly conservative executive offers a much-needed corrective to this narrative, by outlining the ‘paradox’ of ‘winning while losing’ in apost-civil rights era. Civil rights activists could still win in a period of conservativegovernance and electoral predominance, the book argues, only in narrower, more limitedterms. Equally, conservatives’ attempts to limit or roll back those victories were oftenresisted, or even thwarted, in a landscape transformed by the civil rights revolution of the1960s. Such a paradox explains why we can celebrate the achievement of formal and politicalequality, the longevity of racially redistributive policies such as affirmative action, and thepresence of an African-American in the White House for two consecutive terms, and yet atthe same time acknowledge that Martin Luther King’s dream of socio-economic equality andan assault on the structural problems of race and racial discrimination remains as elusive andincomplete as ever.The focus of Winning While Losing is on presidential politics, and the book’s ten essays,covering nearly every presidency from Nixon to Obama (George H.W. Bush is the onlyabsentee), expertly link executive decision-making and electoral strategizing with the politicsof civil rights. They chart the redirection of civil rights advocacy away from Congress, theSupreme Court or public debate towards what Osgood and White call ‘the shadows’ – thecourts, bureaucracy and federal agencies; a trend which enabled conservatives to pack andpoliticise such institutions and thus limit or even reverse old legal precedents and definitions.They illustrate the emergence of a new conservative discourse on race, implicitly rather thanexplicitly racialised, which utilised decreasing public support for government interventionand regulation – the traditional engines of civil rights reform – to limit and restrict civil rights1 For examples, see Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill & Wang, 2008), pp. 210-236; Robert J. Norrell, The House I Live In (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 269-302; StephenSteinberg, Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy (Boston: BeaconPress, 1995).2initiatives. And they highlight the important support role played by purportedly racial liberals– from Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to a young Delaware Senator named Joseph Biden – inhelping to shape, consolidate and legitimise this discourse. Yet Winning While Losing alsorecognises the limits of the conservative ascendancy, reflecting a wider recent trend in thehistoriography of American conservatism that now argues for the ‘failed revolution’ of thepolitical Right.2 As the essays demonstrate, conservatives initiated affirmative action policiesand then failed in their attempts to reverse them, typically bowed to political pragmatismbefore political ideology, and at times even aided the expansion of “big government”, as inthe case of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. Liberalism’s surprising resilience,and a transformed, often uncertain post-civil rights polity, ensured that conservatives wereforced to compromise and innovate as often as they were able to “turn back the clock” oncivil rights.Despite its strengths, Winning While Losing is not without its omissions. First, the majority ofthe book’s coverage is given over to the cause of African-American civil rights, yet as JohnSkrentny’s work on the ‘minority rights revolution’ makes clear, from the 1970s onwardsAfrican-Americans were working in an increasingly competitive civil rights marketplace,facing challenges from Latinos, Asian-Americans, women, homosexuals, the disabled andeven ethnic whites.3 Despite some discussion of the growing appeal of the Latino vote forconservative presidents and candidates, or the contrasting fortunes of women’s rights,Winning While Losing might do more to discuss how the arrival of these competitorschallenged, defined and limited the potential civil rights gains of African-Americans in anincreasingly crowded field. Second, the international dimensions of civil rights, which grewin importance with the amplification of an African-American foreign policy voice in the1970s and 1980s, receive remarkably little coverage in the book. These are areas in whichcivil rights advocates won notable gains from conservative executives, from the 1986Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act to Bush’s anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns in Africa, yet theyare rarely addressed in these pages.Nonetheless, Winning While Losing offers valuable and much-needed insights into both thetrajectory of civil rights politics after the racial revolution of the 1960s, and the intersection2 Julian Zelizer, ‘Rethinking the History of American Conservatism’, Reviews in American History 38 (2) (June2010), pp. 367-389; Kim Phillips-Fein, ‘Conservatism: A State of the Field’, Journal of American History 98 (3)(2011), pp. 723-743.3 John Skrentny, The Minority Rights Revolution (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2002).3of that politics with the wider conservative movement against a changing political, economicand intellectual backdrop. Its essays tell stories of entrenched racial problems and difficultsolutions, ambiguous victories and unlikely obstacles; stories that are awkward and evenunpopular, certainly, but in our increasingly individualistic and unequal society, moreimportant than ever to share.Dr Joe MertonDepartment of History, University of Nottingham

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Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning while losing: civil rights, the conservative movement and the presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95. Pp. 304; 978-0-8130-4908-3)

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