San Antonio College Library

Updated ed. of: The Reagan experiment. c1982. Includes index. Bibliography: p. 381-401.

For the first time in the history of America, an entire group of people has been told that there is no hope for them, that society has so oppressed them that they are unable to climb the ladder of economic success and are so irretrievably mired in poverty that the state must and should support them. This group is today's underclass, overwhelmingly urban, dismayingly minority. Such a view has been imposed upon it by a mainstream culture whose reinterpretation...

Thirty years ago, the great national issue was how to help ordinary, workaday Americans achieve the good things in life. Today, we are preoccupied with--and increasingly divided over--how to cope with the problems of poor and dependent Americans, most of whom do not work. The growth in the number of nonworking poor people--and the failure of traditional social reforms to bring them back into the mainstream--has transformed American politics beyond...

Since Ronald Reagan left office--and particularly after his death--his shadow has loomed large over American politics: Republicans and many Democrats have waxed nostalgic, extolling the Republican tradition he embodied, the optimism he espoused, and his abilities as a communicator. This carefully calibrated image is complete fiction, argues journalist William Kleinknecht. The Reagan presidency was epoch-shattering, but not--as his propagandists would...