Rutherford Platt

Very disappointing. It offers a very selective and negative view of the Kennedy-Johnson domestic agenda. Very little actual history of the various programs and controversies of the Great Society. She offers blanket and unsupported indictments of the New Deal and every government program to provide health and income security to ordinary Americans. The book is racist -and sexist - most of the photographs in the "gallery" are rich white guys who receive her uncritical approval. No women or non-white individuals rank a photograph, other than Martin Luther King Jr. who is mentioned disparagingly in a caption. The book is totally lacking in legislative and legal history. Her knowledge of public housing programs seems limited to the infamous Pruitt-Igoe project; there is no mention of the legendary Gautreaux v. CHA litigation which reinvented federal public housing. There is no mention of Jane Addams or her colleagues who pioneered many of the social programs of the New Deal laying a foundation for the War on Poverty, and indeed for Obamacare. She does not mention Trump -- would she dare to support his attempt to trash Obamacare and WHO in the midst of a pandemic? I am returning my copy to the independent bookstore where I rashly bought it.