THE GREAT FLIP

Fraser offers a new history of seismic ideological changes in the American Democratic and Republican parties.

In his latest work of history, the author, a teacher of history to adults through the Osher Lifelong Learning Center, focuses on the evolution of the United States’ two major political parties, from their origins to their current declared positions, which are, in many cases, inversions of their original orientations. Fraser begins his account with the Founding Fathers and their concerns regarding state-level government and centralized government. The author’s primary aim is to demonstrate the many ways that liberals and conservatives have, over “the long sweep of American history,” swapped positions on that central role of energetic government: “It was initially the conservatives who pushed for a powerful central government,” Fraser writes, “in part to transform the United States into an industrial society.” Looking at political, social, racial, and economic factors over the course of two centuries, the author charts the course of the Republican and Democratic parties. All of this is popular history done very, very well. Fraser is uniformly excellent at breaking down complex subjects into readable, comprehensible narratives—a godsend considering the intricacies of the material he’s covering. He deploys his many well-utilized sources smoothly and unobtrusively, and he strikes a welcomingly nonpartisan tone while discussing social and political subjects that have become radioactively divisive in the 21st century. The author is also superb at crafting economical but evocative portraits of the many larger-than-life figures in his story, from the Founding Fathers to titans of the Progressive Era like William Jennings Bryan (and his wife; as Fraser puts it, “When he married Mary Baird, he not only found the love of his life but also a woman who aided his rise in politics”) to William McKinley in the pivotal presidential campaign of 1896, which the author identifies as a turning point in American politics.

A comprehensive and very readable history of two political parties switching identities.