A Political History of the American Welfare System ─ When Ideas Have Consequences

John Maynard Keynes once noted that "Madmen in authority... are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." O'Connor (politics and public policy, Griffith U., Australia) supports this observation in his study of the development of the American welfare system and the broader world of political language and rhetoric within which it has been shaped. Studying welfare policy from Lyndon Johnson's liberal social agenda to Bill Clinton's "ending welfare as we know it," he divides the period (and his book) into three sections corresponding to welfare politics that conformed to liberal ideology, the conservative backlash against liberalism, and the forging of a conservative welfare system. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Brendon O'Connor is a lecturer in the School of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University in Australia.