in American conservative politics includes valu-
able information about presidents Ronald Rea-
gan and George H. W. Bush’s response to these is-
sues.
Edsall, Thomas Byrne, with Mary D. Edsall.Chain Re-
action: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on Amer-
ican Politics. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. The
Edsalls argue that the Democrats had become the
minority political party by the early 1990’s be-
cause of three factors: race, civil rights, and taxes.
They focus on how these factors turned many
working-class and middle-class white people
against the Democrats, providing a detailed anal-
ysis of the presidential elections from 1964 to
1988.
Hacker, Andrew.Two Nations: Black and White, Sepa-
rate, Hostile, Unequal. New York: Charles Scrib-
ner’s Sons, 2003. Hacker does not buy into the ar-
gument that race no longer matters in America;
he argues persuasively that this issue continues to
have an impact upon the country. He cites statis-
tics to demonstrate that racism is a major reason
for the disparities in income and crime and other
differences between black and white Americans.
Laham, Nicholas.The Reagan Presidency and the Poli-
tics of Race: In Pursuit of Colorblind Justice and Limited
Government. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998.
Laham looks at racial issues during the Reagan
presidency. He argues that Ronald Reagan’s de-
sire to reduce the enforcement of civil rights laws
was not motivated by racism but by the president’s
desire to limit the role of government.
Nagel, Joane.American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red
Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Nagel argues
that Americans are now more willing to identify
themselves as Native Americans or American In-
dians than they were in the past. She attributes
this, in part, to the Civil Rights movement of the
1960’s, but she identifies other reasons for the re-
surgence in Native American culture in the last
half of the twentieth century.
Nightingale, Carl Husemoller.On The Edge: A Histor y
of Poor Black Children and Their American Dreams.
New York: Basic Books, 1993. Nightingale argues
that both left-wing and right-wing politicians mis-
understand the causes of black poverty. He indicts
the role of the media and Americans’ conspicu-
ous consumption as the reasons for this indi-
gence.
- Supreme Court
Davis, Derek.Original Intent: Chief Justice Rehnquist
and the Course of American Church-State Relations.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991. Davis ex-
amines the Rehnquist Court during its initial
years, focusing on its rulings regarding church-
state relations. He argues that William H. Rehn-
quist endangered religious freedom by allowing
state aid to religion. The book also includes a
brief examination of the other justices who served
on the Court in the early 1990’s.
O’Connor, Sandra Day, and H. Alan Day.Lazy B:
Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American South-
west. New York: Random House, 2003. O’Connor,
whom Ronald Reagan appointed to the Supreme
Court, and Day, her brother, recall their youth on
the Lazy B cattle ranch.
Schultz, David A., and Christopher E. Smith.The Ju-
risprudential Vision of Justice Antonin Scalia. Lan-
ham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996. Schultz
and Smith examine the first ten years of Scalia’s
service on the Supreme Court. They argue that
there is not one consistent vision that has moti-
vated Scalia, and that Scalia’s extreme right-wing
nature has prevented him from forming coali-
tions or remaking the law as much as he could
have. The authors do not accept Scalia’s word
that his opinions follow the direct writing of the
Constitution, or what is known as textualism; they
critique Scalia’s opinions to demonstrate how
they often divert from a strictly textual interpreta-
tion.
Schwartz, Bernard.The Ascent of Pragmatism: The
Burger Court in Action. Reading, Mass.: Addison-
Wesley, 1990. Schwartz, who wrote a well-received
book on Chief Justice Earl Warren, argues that
the Burger Court was more a continuation of
the Warren Court than a significant departure
from it. He contends that Chief Justice Warren E.
Burger was not the effective leader of the Court,
as one might expect a chief justice to be, but that
the Court was led by the more centrist justices.
In addition to examining the Court as a whole,
Schwartz also looks at the contribution of each
justice.
Tushnet, Mark V.A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court
and the Future of Constitutional Law. New York:
W. W. Norton, 2005. Tushnet describes the divi-
sions within the Rehnquist Court, examining the
views of the individual justices. He suggests that
The Eighties in America Bibliography 1157