White Flight
Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism

kruse works with an apparently narrow narrow topic — the history neighborhood-based desegregation within atlanta. impressively, he manages to document how more or less every major conservative policy position on every major domestic issue can be seen to flow from this issue. kruse's book is a detail......more

This was a well-put-together, if infinitely depressing, look at the process of white flight in Atlanta, a city which dubbed itself "too busy to hate" and used a form of half-measures to try and preserve the Jim Crow system until it ultimately became unsustainable. What really jumps out in these pages......more

Kruse traces the evolution of segregationist discourse in the seemingly moderate city of Atlanta from overtly racist rhetoric to a more nuanced, rights-based argument that emphasized middle class values. Kruse displays how events in Atlanta helped spur national events which culminated in the legitim......more

So this is how you get a job at Princeton! I thought this was a fascinating look at the very local origins of massive political shifts. Kruse builds his argument about the party switch of the 1960s and the rise of a new oconservatism that emphasized freedom from government intervention, privatizatio......more

I wish all of my peers would read this book. My high school classmate Kevin Kruse is the author; he's now a history professor at Princeton, but that's just the reason why I (and now you) found out about it. The reason you should read it is that Kruse has chosen a powerful and proximate subject matte......more