The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment PDF
Preview The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment
More praise for THE PRESIDENCY OF BARACK OBAMA “This book captures the paradox of Barack Obama’s presidency better than any so far: Conventional wisdom aside, Obama was a better policymaker than a politician. His accomplishments are more impressive and numerous than even many supporters perceived, yet he never fully understood the ferocity of the opposition he engendered and didn’t do enough to fight the forces of reaction that led to Trump’s unlikely victory. The Presidency of Barack Obama will help readers understand what Obama, sadly, did not—until it was too late.” —Joan Walsh, author of What’s the Matter with White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America “As the Obama presidency becomes history, historians have a unique ability to put its successes and failures in perspective. This is a rich and stimulating volume from a distinguished group of scholars.” —Anne-Marie Slaughter, President & CEO, New America “Julian Zelizer has assembled a superb collection of essays by the nation’s finest historians of U.S. politics and policymaking. This excellent book immediately takes its place as the indispensable one-volume guide to what Barack Obama accomplished—and failed to accomplish—over the course of eight years.” —Eric Patashnik, author of Reforms at Risk: What Happens after Major Policy Changes Are Enacted “Early versions of history can be tricky, but Julian Zelizer and his colleagues have provided a firm foundation for the many books analyzing the presidency of Barack Obama that will follow.” —Norman Ornstein, The American Enterprise Institute “Filled with insight and analytical wisdom, the book’s appraisals sharpen understanding of current conundrums while revealing the power of well-crafted contemporary history. Readers will gain fresh perspectives about the structural conditions, political experiences, and ideological challenges that shaped the Obama presidency’s policy achievements and disappointments.” —Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time “A brilliant and timely examination of one of the most important presidencies in American history. Avoiding narrow-minded critique and uncritical celebration, this book masterfully analyzes the unheralded victories and unexamined contradictions of the Obama presidency.” —Marc Lamont Hill, author of Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond “This is a smart, timely collection of essays that will serve as an important first assessment of the Obama administration. It will be useful to scholars of modern American politics, but also to journalists and policy makers, as well as many politically minded general readers.” —Joseph Crespino, author of Strom Thurmond’s America THE PRESIDENCY OF BARACK OBAMA The Presidency of Barack Obama A First Historical Assessment Edited by Julian E. Zelizer PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Cover photograph: President Barack Obama campaigning in Ohio, July 8, 2012 EDB Image Archive Alamy Stock Photo All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalog Number 2017957812 Cloth ISBN 978-0-691-16028-3 Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-18210-0 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Adobe Text Pro and Gotham Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Harav Hanoch and Bayshe Zelizer, my great-grandparents, who arrived on these shores in the early twentieth century and embodied the promise of our immigrant nation CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Timeline xi 1 Policy Revolution without a Political Transformation: The Presidency of Barack Obama 1 Julian E. Zelizer 2 Tea Partied: President Obama’s Encounters with the Conservative-Industrial Complex 11 Julian E. Zelizer 3 Neither a Depression nor a New Deal: Bailout, Stimulus, and the Economy 30 Eric Rauchway 4 Achievement without Credit: The Obama Presidency and Inequality 45 Paul Starr 5 Obama’s Fight against Global Warming 62 Meg Jacobs 6 Obama’s Court? 78 Risa Goluboff and Richard Schragger 7 The Gay Rights President 95 Timothy Stewart-Winter 8 Education in the Age of Obama: The Paradox of Consensus 111 Jonathan Zimmerman 9 Barack Obama and the Movement for Black Lives: Race, Democracy, and Criminal Justice in the Age of Ferguson 127 Peniel E. Joseph 10 A Decent-Sized Foundation: Obama’s Urban Policy 144 Thomas J. Sugrue 11 “Tough and Smart”: The Resilience of the War on Drugs during the Obama Administration 162 Matthew D. Lassiter 12 A Promise Unfulfilled, an Imperfect Legacy: Obama and Immigration Policy 179 Sarah R. Coleman 13 Liberal Internationalism, Law, and the First African American President 195 Jeremi Suri 14 Terror Tuesdays: How Obama Refined Bush’s Counterterrorism Policies 212 Kathryn Olmsted 15 A Hyphenated Legacy? Obama’s Africa Policy 227 Jacob Dlamini 16 Criticize and Thrive: The American Left in the Obama Years 246 Michael Kazin 17 Civic Ideals, Race, and Nation in the Age of Obama 261 Gary Gerstle Notes 281 List of Contributors 327 Index 331 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the many people who made this book possible. Most important, all the contributors of this book have been incredible colleagues. They put their energy and passion into these essays, producing work that captures essential aspects of this presidency. They have been a pleasure to work with. The Center for Collaborative History, the Woodrow Wilson School, and the American Studies program all contributed funds that allowed our workshop about the Obama presidency to take place in November 2016. Bernadette Yeager was instrumental to making the conference, where this book started, a reality with her organizational efficiency. This was part of the annual Princeton University–Boston University–Cambridge University Conference, which Bruce Schulman, Anthony Badger, and I started many years ago, joined by new colleagues like Andrew Preston and Gary Gerstle. I would also like to thank Eric Crahan, our editor at Princeton University Press, who has been a strong supporter of the project from the beginning. Jill Harris has been a superb production editor, moving the project along at a brisk pace. Marilyn Campbell provided terrific copyediting. Madeleine Adams assisted me with some editorial work, while Jake Blumgart and Nathaniel Jiranek assisted with the timeline. Julian E. Zelizer
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