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Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974
Two award-winning historians explore the origins of a divided America.
If you were asked when America became polarized, your answer would likely depend on your age: you might say during Barack Obama’s presidency, or with the post-9/11 war on terror, or the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, or the “Reagan Revolution” and the the rise of the New Right.
For leading historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, it all starts in 1974. In that one year, the nation was rocked by one major event after another: The Watergate crisis and the departure of President Richard Nixon, the first and only U.S. President to resign; the winding down of the Vietnam War and rising doubts about America’s military might; the fallout from the OPEC oil embargo that paralyzed America with the greatest energy crisis in its history; and the desegregation busing riots in South Boston that showed a horrified nation that our efforts to end institutional racism were failing.
In the years that followed, the story of our own lifetimes would be written. Longstanding historical fault lines over income inequality, racial division, and a revolution in gender roles and sexual norms would deepen and fuel a polarized political landscape. In Fault Lines, Kruse and Zelizer reveal how the divisions of the present day began almost five decades ago, and how they were widened thanks to profound changes in our political system as well as a fracturing media landscape that was repeatedly transformed with the rise of cable TV, the internet, and social media.
How did the United States become so divided? Fault Lines offers a richly told, wide-angle history view toward an answer.
If you were asked when America became polarized, your answer would likely depend on your age: you might say during Barack Obama’s presidency, or with the post-9/11 war on terror, or the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, or the “Reagan Revolution” and the the rise of the New Right.
For leading historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, it all starts in 1974. In that one year, the nation was rocked by one major event after another: The Watergate crisis and the departure of President Richard Nixon, the first and only U.S. President to resign; the winding down of the Vietnam War and rising doubts about America’s military might; the fallout from the OPEC oil embargo that paralyzed America with the greatest energy crisis in its history; and the desegregation busing riots in South Boston that showed a horrified nation that our efforts to end institutional racism were failing.
In the years that followed, the story of our own lifetimes would be written. Longstanding historical fault lines over income inequality, racial division, and a revolution in gender roles and sexual norms would deepen and fuel a polarized political landscape. In Fault Lines, Kruse and Zelizer reveal how the divisions of the present day began almost five decades ago, and how they were widened thanks to profound changes in our political system as well as a fracturing media landscape that was repeatedly transformed with the rise of cable TV, the internet, and social media.
How did the United States become so divided? Fault Lines offers a richly told, wide-angle history view toward an answer.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 8, 2019
362 people are currently reading
2809 people want to read
About the author
Kevin M. Kruse
12 books287 followersKevin M. Kruse (PhD, Cornell University) is Professor of History at Princeton University. Dr. Kruse studies the political, social, and urban/suburban history of 20th-century America. Focused on conflicts over race, rights, and religion, he has particular interests in segregation and the civil rights movement, the rise of religious nationalism and the making of modern conservatism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 159 reviews
March 9, 2019
The book is great, but it's pretty elementary. Maybe good for high schoolers or a college course. The book is a catalogue of big events that happened in the political space and cultural fights etc. If you read a lot of history books, there is nothing in here that is new. It's a good summary of the last 40 years though so it's good for many audiences to have it in once place like this
April 25, 2019
June 17, 1972.
It was the day of my marriage. By our first anniversary, the date had another meaning: the date of the Watergate break-in.
As a girl, I had seen America come together with the assassination of President Kennedy and divide over the war in Viet Nam. The sounds of my teenage years were the chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today," and the music of Woodstock.
I finished my education, worked, had a child, sent him to college, saw him settle in work and a house, and retired against the backdrop of a further dividing America.
Fault Lines condenses history into paragraphs, each event eliciting a memory. I remembered it all. And the more I read the angrier I became.
In under 400 pages, Kevin M. Kruse and Justin E. Zelizer have compacted American political, social, and media history into a readable narrative.
Movements arose demanding equal rights while counter-movements strove to maintain the status quo--the authority of white males. The conflict has not resolved to a Hegelian shift to the center though, just a rising antagonism and deepening divide.
They describe how cultural shifts and disturbances impacted film and television and how the rise of the Internet and cable news shattered the common ground of national news.
For me, it was a condensation of memories. I had to wonder how a younger reader would respond. The authors are historians and Princeton University professors. They have taught this history to students.
This is a history book and not an offering of solutions; there are plenty of current books that address where to go from here. The authors state that the challenge is to "harness the intense energy that now drives us apart and channel it once again toward creating new and stronger bridges that can bring us together."
But so far, those leaders who endeavored to bridge the gap and pledge bipartisanship failed. There is no indication that the old fashioned values cherished in the past--working together for the common good, obeying the rule of law and custom, communicating, finding common ground--are reemerging. Instead, political leaders are ignoring the will of the majority, engineering ways to disenfranchise groups, with special interest group money buying political clout.
We are told that by knowing the past we can plan for the future, understanding our errors we can proactively prevent the repetition of those errors. I know that America has gone astray many times in our brief history, and the countering movements arighted our ship of state. It is my 'glass half full' hope.
I received an ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
It was the day of my marriage. By our first anniversary, the date had another meaning: the date of the Watergate break-in.
As a girl, I had seen America come together with the assassination of President Kennedy and divide over the war in Viet Nam. The sounds of my teenage years were the chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today," and the music of Woodstock.
I finished my education, worked, had a child, sent him to college, saw him settle in work and a house, and retired against the backdrop of a further dividing America.
Fault Lines condenses history into paragraphs, each event eliciting a memory. I remembered it all. And the more I read the angrier I became.
In under 400 pages, Kevin M. Kruse and Justin E. Zelizer have compacted American political, social, and media history into a readable narrative.
Movements arose demanding equal rights while counter-movements strove to maintain the status quo--the authority of white males. The conflict has not resolved to a Hegelian shift to the center though, just a rising antagonism and deepening divide.
They describe how cultural shifts and disturbances impacted film and television and how the rise of the Internet and cable news shattered the common ground of national news.
For me, it was a condensation of memories. I had to wonder how a younger reader would respond. The authors are historians and Princeton University professors. They have taught this history to students.
This is a history book and not an offering of solutions; there are plenty of current books that address where to go from here. The authors state that the challenge is to "harness the intense energy that now drives us apart and channel it once again toward creating new and stronger bridges that can bring us together."
But so far, those leaders who endeavored to bridge the gap and pledge bipartisanship failed. There is no indication that the old fashioned values cherished in the past--working together for the common good, obeying the rule of law and custom, communicating, finding common ground--are reemerging. Instead, political leaders are ignoring the will of the majority, engineering ways to disenfranchise groups, with special interest group money buying political clout.
We are told that by knowing the past we can plan for the future, understanding our errors we can proactively prevent the repetition of those errors. I know that America has gone astray many times in our brief history, and the countering movements arighted our ship of state. It is my 'glass half full' hope.
I received an ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
November 21, 2019
Fault Liners: A History of the United States Since 1974
by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer
The authors begin by outlining the divisions in the country mentioned by President Obama in his farewell address in January of 2017. To the divisions of economic, racial, and political the authors add the division in gender and sexuality. These become the Fault Lines of the Title. The authors then follow these Fault Lines through the decades from Nixon’s resignation to the 2016 election.
Anyone paying attention to the Democratic campaigns right now is aware of the increasing economic inequality. The authors mention that early on in this period of history the ratio of the highest paid employee and the lowest paid employee of a company was in some reasonable range, but following the supply side economics of the Reagan era this ratio started to skew towards the rich. It has only gotten worse lately.
Regarding the racial divisions the authors mention:
“The Fault lines in race relations, long submerged by the fiction that America had become a ‘postracial nation’ after the accomplishments of the civil rights era and, more recently, the election of the first black president, burst back into public view.” (page 320)
As an acquaintance recently said why are we even still talking about race.
But the most important discussion for me was the issue of partisan polarization that was at the heart of the 2016 election. My political bias is apparent here but it is hard to not lay this issue at the feet of the Republican party. There are several examples following the election of President Obama. In early January of 2009 the House Republicans met to discuss their agenda which became “The purpose of the Minority is to become the Majority.” The Senate Republicans followed the same pattern. A Republican Senator from Ohio stated “the plan was simple — whatever Obama proposed, they would oppose: ‘If he was for it, we had to be against it’.” (page 298) The most stunning example was Kentucky Minority Leader “Moscow” Mitch McConnell who said “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” These were the goals of elected representatives sent to Washington to govern, but while the country was undergoing a financial meltdown and the new President was making efforts to usher in a “postpartisan era”, the Republicans were only interested in gaining power, not in what might be good for the country.
I found this book to be an excellent history. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about this period. Instead of giving a minute by minute description of events it mentions the event and then analyzes the consequences. The attacks on 9/11 are described in one paragraph and the transformation of our political and social life are described at length. (pages 249-254).
There was some discomfort in reading this book. I became eligible to vote in the 1968 presidential election. There have been 13 presidential election in my voting life and there is only 1 president out of the 8 we have elected that makes me proud. That is a dismal record for my generation. That is a criticism of the period of history not of the book.
As I stated above my generation has a dismal record. The current “OK Boomer” phrase seems appropriate now. I believe I will follow the advice of Abigal Disney who recently gave this advice to Baby Boomers:
“Sit The F**k Down And Let The Kids Drive.”
by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer
The authors begin by outlining the divisions in the country mentioned by President Obama in his farewell address in January of 2017. To the divisions of economic, racial, and political the authors add the division in gender and sexuality. These become the Fault Lines of the Title. The authors then follow these Fault Lines through the decades from Nixon’s resignation to the 2016 election.
Anyone paying attention to the Democratic campaigns right now is aware of the increasing economic inequality. The authors mention that early on in this period of history the ratio of the highest paid employee and the lowest paid employee of a company was in some reasonable range, but following the supply side economics of the Reagan era this ratio started to skew towards the rich. It has only gotten worse lately.
Regarding the racial divisions the authors mention:
“The Fault lines in race relations, long submerged by the fiction that America had become a ‘postracial nation’ after the accomplishments of the civil rights era and, more recently, the election of the first black president, burst back into public view.” (page 320)
As an acquaintance recently said why are we even still talking about race.
But the most important discussion for me was the issue of partisan polarization that was at the heart of the 2016 election. My political bias is apparent here but it is hard to not lay this issue at the feet of the Republican party. There are several examples following the election of President Obama. In early January of 2009 the House Republicans met to discuss their agenda which became “The purpose of the Minority is to become the Majority.” The Senate Republicans followed the same pattern. A Republican Senator from Ohio stated “the plan was simple — whatever Obama proposed, they would oppose: ‘If he was for it, we had to be against it’.” (page 298) The most stunning example was Kentucky Minority Leader “Moscow” Mitch McConnell who said “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” These were the goals of elected representatives sent to Washington to govern, but while the country was undergoing a financial meltdown and the new President was making efforts to usher in a “postpartisan era”, the Republicans were only interested in gaining power, not in what might be good for the country.
I found this book to be an excellent history. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about this period. Instead of giving a minute by minute description of events it mentions the event and then analyzes the consequences. The attacks on 9/11 are described in one paragraph and the transformation of our political and social life are described at length. (pages 249-254).
There was some discomfort in reading this book. I became eligible to vote in the 1968 presidential election. There have been 13 presidential election in my voting life and there is only 1 president out of the 8 we have elected that makes me proud. That is a dismal record for my generation. That is a criticism of the period of history not of the book.
As I stated above my generation has a dismal record. The current “OK Boomer” phrase seems appropriate now. I believe I will follow the advice of Abigal Disney who recently gave this advice to Baby Boomers:
“Sit The F**k Down And Let The Kids Drive.”
January 20, 2019
First, this book was EXTREMELY readable. It was clearly written to be read not just by academics, but by the general population trying to get an understanding of our political reality. Secondly, I learned a lot that I didn’t know! I gained a much deeper understanding of things I had never understood - the dot com boom, how fucking close popular votes are but there’s wild havoc in the electoral college, the large large impact of the formation of different media companies. Because this was sort of bare bones (in order for it to not be 6 million pages long presumably), on topics that I personally know a lot about I found it really lacking, but I imagine anyone would feel that way, since all topics got a few brief pages, given the pure amount of content it needed to cover.
As the authors said, they modeled the book off of their undergraduate course on history of American since 1974, and it shows. It feels very much like it’s written in the model of a medium-level undergraduate history course - aka giving enough bones to make the argument while also possibly sparking interest in specific events or time periods without getting too deep into the information themselves. It felt like a jumping off board so that people got enough information to not have gaping holes, but could decide they wanted to go into history 300 or 400 classes that were more pointed and had tighter focus.
It is interesting that they decided to start with 1974, and I agree that there was a particular level of political discord started then. However, I am surprised they didn’t address that the same level or greater happened prior to WWI, and that the WWI through 1960 was an anomaly in American history. It also is SUPER white and cis and het and male to talk about the time before 1974 as some sort of great American cohesion - it is true that there was cohesion in a lot of ways, including because the wealth disparities weren’t as large. It also is true that communities that were Othered were fighting hard as hell to survive at all, especially to survive on our own terms during the War and Post-War-but-pre-1974 time frame, especially when you look at everything happening with the Civil Rights movement and the fact that a president, a presidential candidate, and Dr. King were all murdered shortly before the beginning of this book. I know that their primary thesis is that the true political polarization all was really sparked in 1974, but their argument and evidence for that is not robust enough to “prove” their point. Especially since it seems to sort of just… pretend that the 1950s and 1960s didn’t really happen? Which is perplexing. Even if what they mean is that in the federal government political polarization didn’t become so large until that point, like… George Wallace? Barry Goldwater?
Their final paragraph is, “The question that the United States of America now faces as a divided country is whether we can harness the intense energy that now drives us apart and channel it once again toward creating new and stronger bridges that can bring us closer together. Whether the fault lines of the past four decades will continue to fracture, or whether these rifts will finally start to heal, is a chapter yet to come.” I think this is… it really exemplifies where the priorities lie to them. Their priorities seem to lie far more in finding cohesion and cooperation than it does with moving forward for the most marginalized of us, and that’s where it really doesn’t sit quite right with me. I know their personal work fairly well, and both of them DO care a lot about marginalized populations, so this conclusion and finale don’t seem to fit and are disconcerting.
It seems not to acknowledge that there is no finding agreement with people who want us dead, people who want to debate whether we exist at all, people who would commit violence against us. We will not go back and we will not go silently and there is not an adequate acknowledgement of that.
Overall I am glad that I read it, and there are people who I would suggest read it, but I did not love it and I was definitely not convinced of their thesis that 1974 was a large starting point.
As the authors said, they modeled the book off of their undergraduate course on history of American since 1974, and it shows. It feels very much like it’s written in the model of a medium-level undergraduate history course - aka giving enough bones to make the argument while also possibly sparking interest in specific events or time periods without getting too deep into the information themselves. It felt like a jumping off board so that people got enough information to not have gaping holes, but could decide they wanted to go into history 300 or 400 classes that were more pointed and had tighter focus.
It is interesting that they decided to start with 1974, and I agree that there was a particular level of political discord started then. However, I am surprised they didn’t address that the same level or greater happened prior to WWI, and that the WWI through 1960 was an anomaly in American history. It also is SUPER white and cis and het and male to talk about the time before 1974 as some sort of great American cohesion - it is true that there was cohesion in a lot of ways, including because the wealth disparities weren’t as large. It also is true that communities that were Othered were fighting hard as hell to survive at all, especially to survive on our own terms during the War and Post-War-but-pre-1974 time frame, especially when you look at everything happening with the Civil Rights movement and the fact that a president, a presidential candidate, and Dr. King were all murdered shortly before the beginning of this book. I know that their primary thesis is that the true political polarization all was really sparked in 1974, but their argument and evidence for that is not robust enough to “prove” their point. Especially since it seems to sort of just… pretend that the 1950s and 1960s didn’t really happen? Which is perplexing. Even if what they mean is that in the federal government political polarization didn’t become so large until that point, like… George Wallace? Barry Goldwater?
Their final paragraph is, “The question that the United States of America now faces as a divided country is whether we can harness the intense energy that now drives us apart and channel it once again toward creating new and stronger bridges that can bring us closer together. Whether the fault lines of the past four decades will continue to fracture, or whether these rifts will finally start to heal, is a chapter yet to come.” I think this is… it really exemplifies where the priorities lie to them. Their priorities seem to lie far more in finding cohesion and cooperation than it does with moving forward for the most marginalized of us, and that’s where it really doesn’t sit quite right with me. I know their personal work fairly well, and both of them DO care a lot about marginalized populations, so this conclusion and finale don’t seem to fit and are disconcerting.
It seems not to acknowledge that there is no finding agreement with people who want us dead, people who want to debate whether we exist at all, people who would commit violence against us. We will not go back and we will not go silently and there is not an adequate acknowledgement of that.
Overall I am glad that I read it, and there are people who I would suggest read it, but I did not love it and I was definitely not convinced of their thesis that 1974 was a large starting point.
February 16, 2019
Kruse is my favorite follow on Twitter; in addition to his full-time gig as a history professor at Princeton, he finds time to call out politicians and pundits for their misrepresentations of the past with unmatched wit, humor, and, oh yeah, primary sources.
For a child of the 1980s, I (and I assume this is true for many of my peers) know very little about the happenings of my decade and the one that preceded it. The 70s and 80s were too recent for my high school history teachers to include in their U.S. history survey classes. I remember running out of time to cover it in detail during my university classes too. This book helped connect the dots as it traced the movement of social and political "fault lines" in the American experiment.
The book is smart but accessible. The authors move quickly from event to event--but there is far too much personality and wit to be labeled a textbook.
For a child of the 1980s, I (and I assume this is true for many of my peers) know very little about the happenings of my decade and the one that preceded it. The 70s and 80s were too recent for my high school history teachers to include in their U.S. history survey classes. I remember running out of time to cover it in detail during my university classes too. This book helped connect the dots as it traced the movement of social and political "fault lines" in the American experiment.
The book is smart but accessible. The authors move quickly from event to event--but there is far too much personality and wit to be labeled a textbook.
March 3, 2019
Kevin Kruse is a historian famous for dunking on Dinish D'Souza on Twitter, which is like being a basketball player being known for dunking on third graders. So while I was kinda meh on his other recent book, I was interested in this because it's received some good attention, has a co-author, and it just happened to be a new release at my library.
The premise of the book is that American politics and society has fractured and that significant fault lines have exacerbated the problems since Watergate. The authors point to issues of distrust in government, racial and gender injustice, changes in media, and economic problems and inequality, all fine reasons. The first few pages are about these general issues in the 1970s. Then the book just feels like a rundown of things that happened from Reagan until today.
So it starts with some analysis and synopsis, but then most of it is just..... stuff.
There's some good conclusions that you can make if you want, but the book itself doesn't make any of those conclusions. It either doesn't mention or glosses over things like the rise of Facebook and Twitter, the OJ trial, the Ned Lamont/Joe Lieberman primary, Scalia's death, birtherism, the Obama/Clinton primary and many other issues. It talks about race early, and then really not again until the end. Trump isn't mentioned at all until the last section instead of weaving him in earlier. It talks about rising income inequality a bit, but then that just drops. There's highlights of the hardening of the Religions Right, but barely any examination of why they've grown or changed.
This is an easy read and I'm sure anyone will remember a lot of what is in the book, but there's so much missing, from polling trends on issues, stats on demographic moves, TV ratings changes, and more. It's safe in that it doesn't actually tell anything.
The premise of the book is that American politics and society has fractured and that significant fault lines have exacerbated the problems since Watergate. The authors point to issues of distrust in government, racial and gender injustice, changes in media, and economic problems and inequality, all fine reasons. The first few pages are about these general issues in the 1970s. Then the book just feels like a rundown of things that happened from Reagan until today.
So it starts with some analysis and synopsis, but then most of it is just..... stuff.
There's some good conclusions that you can make if you want, but the book itself doesn't make any of those conclusions. It either doesn't mention or glosses over things like the rise of Facebook and Twitter, the OJ trial, the Ned Lamont/Joe Lieberman primary, Scalia's death, birtherism, the Obama/Clinton primary and many other issues. It talks about race early, and then really not again until the end. Trump isn't mentioned at all until the last section instead of weaving him in earlier. It talks about rising income inequality a bit, but then that just drops. There's highlights of the hardening of the Religions Right, but barely any examination of why they've grown or changed.
This is an easy read and I'm sure anyone will remember a lot of what is in the book, but there's so much missing, from polling trends on issues, stats on demographic moves, TV ratings changes, and more. It's safe in that it doesn't actually tell anything.
May 26, 2019
I'm sorry to say I was a little lukewarm on this book. It's a fine overview and it's written clearly, which would make it a good book to teach from, but I was really struck by how closely the first 100 pages resemble Bruce Schulman's The Seventies, and the 1980s and 1990s parts are very similar to Gil Troy's "Morning in America" and "The Age of Clinton," as well as the CNN decade documentaries. It's not plagiarism, exactly, but it doesn't offer a new perspective and it actually felt a little too broad on the fault lines we're dealing with--it's focused on Democrats vs. Republicans, but there are other fault lines (populist vs. centrist, isolationist vs. internationalist, urban vs. rural) that are not really discussed in depth here.
April 13, 2024
Dogshit! It is extremely textbooky, with everything compartmentalized and unmoored from its causes and larger trends.
The organizing thesis for the book, aside from “and then this happened,” is that America was increasingly rent by “fault lines” that opened up due to media bubbles, social issues, and other disagreements about the course of the country. But it kinda ignores that all these disagreements were pre-existing and predate Watergate (which the book takes as the start of the era).
A much stronger thesis is that the post-watergate era was disillusioning to the body politic: not that the disagreements changed, but the false consensus of the ‘50s and ‘60s collapsed because marginalized minorities made their voices heard and insisted on a truer representation of reality. Compared to that, Kruse and Zelizer’s framing is oddly conservative and reactionary even as they strive to make the book’s contents very nonpartisan and down-the-middle.
The result is a book that ostensibly covers the events from 1974 to 2017 or so, but leaves you with almost less understanding than before, confusing or needlessly complicating many of the issues. Bad!
The organizing thesis for the book, aside from “and then this happened,” is that America was increasingly rent by “fault lines” that opened up due to media bubbles, social issues, and other disagreements about the course of the country. But it kinda ignores that all these disagreements were pre-existing and predate Watergate (which the book takes as the start of the era).
A much stronger thesis is that the post-watergate era was disillusioning to the body politic: not that the disagreements changed, but the false consensus of the ‘50s and ‘60s collapsed because marginalized minorities made their voices heard and insisted on a truer representation of reality. Compared to that, Kruse and Zelizer’s framing is oddly conservative and reactionary even as they strive to make the book’s contents very nonpartisan and down-the-middle.
The result is a book that ostensibly covers the events from 1974 to 2017 or so, but leaves you with almost less understanding than before, confusing or needlessly complicating many of the issues. Bad!
March 17, 2020
2.5 stars.
A perfectly okay book but largely forgettable. So forgettable I forgot to add it to my list of books. It took me about a week to read it.
Fault Lines was written by academics and it reads as such. I generally prefer the works of historians or journalists and books like this are the reason why. The passages were overly long and not particularly engaging. (My tastes are pretty ordinary.) I did enjoy certain portions (see highlights), particularly the more recent historical sections.
At first I thought the book would overlap significantly with Tailspin (by Steven Brill); both books talk about the decline of America from the past several decades to the present. Some points were the same but there were surprisingly few repeats. I guess that shows there are countless reasons why America is decaying and the analysis is more subjective than objective. Given a choice between the books Brill's is the the better selection. He's guilty of analyzing down to the subatomic level but he provides better insights and writes fascinating passages when he's not meandering in the analytical weeds.
A perfectly okay book but largely forgettable. So forgettable I forgot to add it to my list of books. It took me about a week to read it.
Fault Lines was written by academics and it reads as such. I generally prefer the works of historians or journalists and books like this are the reason why. The passages were overly long and not particularly engaging. (My tastes are pretty ordinary.) I did enjoy certain portions (see highlights), particularly the more recent historical sections.
At first I thought the book would overlap significantly with Tailspin (by Steven Brill); both books talk about the decline of America from the past several decades to the present. Some points were the same but there were surprisingly few repeats. I guess that shows there are countless reasons why America is decaying and the analysis is more subjective than objective. Given a choice between the books Brill's is the the better selection. He's guilty of analyzing down to the subatomic level but he provides better insights and writes fascinating passages when he's not meandering in the analytical weeds.
July 5, 2019
It feels weird to read a history book and to remember everything that it described. Quoting T.S.E., "I grow old..." Good summary of the events which led to the development of the fault lines which cleave the American public today. However, I had hoped for something more analytic and a theory of both proximate cause, if such a thing exists, and some suggestion as to what can be done to close the gap. Could be that the author has no more acceptable and practical suggestions than I do!
April 7, 2019
There's nothing new here for anyone who could read in 1974. This is essentially "history lite" with an emphasis on social problems -- abortion, crime, racism, etc. If the author(s) set out to define the root cause of the blue/red divide (rather than just enumerate the symptoms), then they failed miserably.
April 10, 2019
Dear U.S. GenXers: This is our historical timeline. Starting with the events around Richard Nixon and Watergate, Kruse and Zelizer outline how the modern U.S. became so politically divided. I'm a lifelong Floridian, so I wasn't surprised to see my state get a fair amount of print time. Some things I had completely forgotten about - Southern Baptist and Florida Citrus Commission spokesperson Anita Bryant launching her horrible anti-LGBTQ campaign in Dade County in the late 70s. Some things I wish I had forgotten about - the 2000 election with the butterfly ballots and hanging chads. Some things we will never forget about - Trayvon Martin and Parkland. Fault Lines is an easy read that does an excellent job highlighting some of the specific historical events that have played a large part in deepening the left-right political rift. Spoiler alert: the media and religion play leading roles in the divide. I think my fellow GenXers will enjoy this historical walk down memory lane.
December 24, 2020
This book is good if you keep in mind what it's purpose is: I take it to be a kind of undergrad textbook for a class on America since the 1960s. The main theme of deepening divisions isn't particularly helpful; anyone who's paying attention knows about polarization, etc. Other themes are more interesting, such as a good thread of analysis about the changing media/communications landscape from a very concentrated, 3-major network, TV and newspaper dominated system to the distermediated, narrowcasted, fragmented system today. Kruse and Zelizer keep a good pace, and this would be a solid undergrad text, although I might pick Dan Rodgers' Age of Fracture over it, depending on what the students can handle. Good to read if you need a survey or reference on the last 50 years or so, but not essential as historiography (not sure if it was meant to make a big splash in that regard anyway).
January 22, 2019
This is an excellent history of the past forty years in American history. It begins with Nixon's Watergate scandal and resignation in 1974 and ends with Trump's election in 2016. This book explores not only the moments of what happened in American history the past four decades, but also the "fault lines" exposed in the political, social and cultural lives of our country. It seeks to explain the polarization and divisiveness that we now face as a nation by looking to our recent past and viewing their origins. I highly recommend this book. If you want to understand where we are now, this book explains it by telling the story of where we have been.
September 9, 2020
It was interesting to read how the two political parties started to not just disagree, but outright hate the other party (both sides). It was crazy to read what ended a person's election campaign even 40 years ago knowing in 2016 it didn't stop an election. Good historian perspective of the last handful of decades. It started as lectures at Princeton and turned into this book, so it was heavily fact checked and re-read and discussed through years of teaching and then creating a book. I felt they tried very hard to be historian and not political.
August 28, 2024
One of the most interesting and neglected periods of US History is the recent past— in schools, it’s often crammed into one week or left off altogether. That’s why this book was so refreshing, it provided an overview of the events that we have a vague understanding of, clarifying our parents’ lifetime while also arguing for a compelling through-line of trends. The last few chapters, on the Obama era to roughly 2018 were particularly interesting, since it gives us a chance to step back and reflect on our own lifetimes and all of the events of the past decade.
January 8, 2020
Good overview over how US politics became ever more strongly divided from the Nixon administration until the 2016 election. Occasionally it simplifies matters a little too much, but it's a good resource for tracing the development over those four and a half decades to the shitshow that is US politics today.
April 22, 2020
Based on a popular course taught by the authors at Princeton, Fault Lines is a very fine book that explores American history from the 1970s to the present. That being said, because of its broad nature certain events were not explored with the depth they require or weren't mentioned at all (Reagan's policy towards Afghanistan was curiously never mentioned).
March 13, 2023
I really enjoyed this trip through the last several decades of US history. While I can remember most of these occurrences, for many I was too young at the time to really appreciate the significance of the events and the lasting effects they had on deepening divisions within this country. Well written and kept my attention throughout.
September 5, 2023
Basically, this is a political history of the United States from the Ford through the first years of the Trump administration. As the title suggests, the issue addressed is political polarization. For me, all of this was a trip down memory lane, a series of reminders as to how much of our politics has little or nothing to do with representing the interests of most citizens. The authors, Princeton history professors, are definitely not sympathetic to the right wing of the Republican Party.
February 17, 2019
This book is a good summary of partisan politics and significant political events since 1974. Good overview of how we got to where we are today. I was born in 1972, so it was interesting to see what I remembered, what I didn't, and how much my beliefs have changed over the years.
September 29, 2024
Concise and informative political history of the US from Watergate to Trump’s election. Highly recommend!
December 4, 2024
50,000 foot overview of 50 years of a society in decline.
June 15, 2024
oh we’re FUCKED fucked
March 24, 2025
A tremendously concise, approachable, and captivating work about nearly five decades of US history - a daunting feat that Kruse and Zelizer masterfully accomplished. I have not enjoyed reading about American political history as much as I did with this book. A great understanding of storytelling is extremely apparent in the way the authors choose to narrate these recent histories, hopefully drawing newer audiences that normally would not pick up an academic work. They make it clear that the recent shortcomings in US politics is not a fluke but the results of decades of historical trends, or "fault lines", that will only continue to shape elections and policymaking.
December 1, 2021
Reads more like a broad-based primer for history rather than anything approaching an argument. Impressive in its detail and scope, but not a particularly fascinating view here.
November 5, 2020
A more apt title would be "A History of Government and Media in the United States." In an age where the media is terrifyingly important in elections, policy decisions, and public opinion, it's still a great read.
The framework of multidimensional "fault lines" coming into play after the turbulent '60s is interesting, and captivating for the first few chapters. As the government becomes a monolith of PAC-funded neoconservatives, those fault lines kinda fade. It's unclear (from this book) what impact the '94 crime bill had on racial division, or what the Republican cozying to radical Christian ideologues did to the women's movement. It basically just said "people disagreed."
Obviously, Donald Trump's deliberate and massive pressure onto those fault lines was a great way to end the book, and important motivator for civic engagement right now. There should have been much greater mention (more than half a page) about Bernie Sanders's unprecedented '16 campaign. Not only was it multiracial and multigenerational, it was proof of a viable campaign that prioritized individuals and their contributions (as opposed to industry giants). His message ties in prophetically with that of divisive fault lines.
Anyway, enough plugging, the book was solid.
The framework of multidimensional "fault lines" coming into play after the turbulent '60s is interesting, and captivating for the first few chapters. As the government becomes a monolith of PAC-funded neoconservatives, those fault lines kinda fade. It's unclear (from this book) what impact the '94 crime bill had on racial division, or what the Republican cozying to radical Christian ideologues did to the women's movement. It basically just said "people disagreed."
Obviously, Donald Trump's deliberate and massive pressure onto those fault lines was a great way to end the book, and important motivator for civic engagement right now. There should have been much greater mention (more than half a page) about Bernie Sanders's unprecedented '16 campaign. Not only was it multiracial and multigenerational, it was proof of a viable campaign that prioritized individuals and their contributions (as opposed to industry giants). His message ties in prophetically with that of divisive fault lines.
Anyway, enough plugging, the book was solid.
September 19, 2019
This book is a masterful rundown of how we got to the age of Trump. Fact-crammed and comprehensive, it keeps the peddle on the truth and doesn't let up. If you've forgotten that the GOP used to have a stronger strain of moderation, this book reminds you of it with, for example, statements from the likes of the first Bush about doing something about the climate crisis.
Not that I'm a fan of either the first Bush or the GOP. But the book kind of slaps you in the face with the cold fact that our politics seem to no longer have the capacity to even recognize a center, to recognize the stipulation to fact, to solve problems through compromise.
Granted, I'm a progressive Lefty. But this country, if even through moderate steps taken by both the GOP and Democrats, could have been making progress toward solving major problems. But the rise of the Religious Right, and its fusion with a failed ideology of tax cuts for the rich and deregulation - all of which came to a head with the entrance of Reagan - set the country on a course toward polarization from which it has not recovered.
Add in the fragmentation of media and the rise of scorched-earth politics, and you get a country where people, including those in power, can live in echo chambers, watching "their" news, declaring "fake news," and using any means necessary to focus on one thing: clobbering and defeating The Other.
The book's distillation of the Obama years, showing how the Republicans fought even the most modest of reforms - such as the Affordable Care Act - and did everything they could to oppose solutions is excellent. Obama truly believed there was room for compromise - only to find out that the Republicans had planned otherwise from the outset.
I'm withholding a star in the review only because I wanted a stronger ending, one that reached more robust conclusions about what we can do about all of this going forward.
Not that I'm a fan of either the first Bush or the GOP. But the book kind of slaps you in the face with the cold fact that our politics seem to no longer have the capacity to even recognize a center, to recognize the stipulation to fact, to solve problems through compromise.
Granted, I'm a progressive Lefty. But this country, if even through moderate steps taken by both the GOP and Democrats, could have been making progress toward solving major problems. But the rise of the Religious Right, and its fusion with a failed ideology of tax cuts for the rich and deregulation - all of which came to a head with the entrance of Reagan - set the country on a course toward polarization from which it has not recovered.
Add in the fragmentation of media and the rise of scorched-earth politics, and you get a country where people, including those in power, can live in echo chambers, watching "their" news, declaring "fake news," and using any means necessary to focus on one thing: clobbering and defeating The Other.
The book's distillation of the Obama years, showing how the Republicans fought even the most modest of reforms - such as the Affordable Care Act - and did everything they could to oppose solutions is excellent. Obama truly believed there was room for compromise - only to find out that the Republicans had planned otherwise from the outset.
I'm withholding a star in the review only because I wanted a stronger ending, one that reached more robust conclusions about what we can do about all of this going forward.
October 15, 2019
This book is packed with great information that has shaped how we got to where we are today. It is an important read for those that want to look at the reality of good historical perspective.
While I lived all this history it brought much of it back to life for me and clarified some things I thought were true but wasn't sure of.
This is a brief easy to read history that I believe we can learn from and maybe start to make some changes that will lead to a brighter future.
While I lived all this history it brought much of it back to life for me and clarified some things I thought were true but wasn't sure of.
This is a brief easy to read history that I believe we can learn from and maybe start to make some changes that will lead to a brighter future.
January 15, 2019
I really liked Kruse's other books and his Twitter persona, and I was looking forward to this book and feel let down. It is a useful jaunt down memory lane (remember music on MTV? Remember Bush v Gore? Remember Katrina?) but seemed to only touch the surface of these events, devoting only a page to subjects that should be whole books or at least chapters. I wanted deeper analysis and a clear throughline. Rather than track the increasing polarization of America, the main message I got here was that America has always felt like it was in crisis, our presidents for decades have always been bigoted and corrupt (Iran-Contra is worse than anything Trump has done, yet) and every election is the most important one yet. Perhaps this is what the authors intended. Maybe I'll have to wait for Ezra Klein's book to get deeper analysis and evaluation. Maybe I'll need to read Perlstein's the Invisible Bridge for more details.
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