By Patrick J. Maney
Of the unique Gilded Age, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote: “There is not any different interval within the nation’s historical past whilst politics turns out so thoroughly dwarfed through monetary alterations, none within which the lifetime of the rustic rests so thoroughly within the arms of the commercial entrepreneur.” The period of William Jefferson Clinton’s ascent to the presidency used to be strikingly similar—nothing much less, Clinton himself stated, than “a paradigm shift . . . from the commercial age to an information-technology age, from the chilly battle to an international society.” How invoice Clinton met the demanding situations of this new Gilded Age is the topic of Patrick J. Maney’s e-book: an in-depth standpoint at the forty second president of the us and the transformative period over which he presided.
Bill Clinton: New Gilded Age President is going past character and politics to ascertain the serious problems with the day: fiscal and financial coverage, company and monetary deregulation, healthcare and welfare reform, and international affairs in a post-Cold battle international. yet at its center is invoice Clinton in all his guises: the 1st child boomer to arrive the White residence; the “natural”—the such a lot talented flesh presser of his iteration, yet one with an inexplicably careless and self-destructive streak; the “Comeback Kid,” again and again overcoming lengthy odds; the survivor, often down yet by no means out; and, with Hillary Rodham Clinton, a part of the main arguable First Couple considering Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Maney’s e-book is, in sum, the main succinct and up to date examine of the Clinton presidency, useful now not basically for realizing a transformative period in American background, yet presidential, nationwide, and worldwide politics today.