Of the original Gilded Age, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote: "There
is no other period in the nation's history when politics seems so
completely dwarfed by economic changes, none in which the life of the
country rests so completely in the hands of the industrial
entrepreneur." The era of William Jefferson Clinton's ascent to the
presidency was strikingly similar--nothing less, Clinton himself said,
than "a paradigm shift . . . from the industrial age to an
informationtechnology age, from the Cold War to a global society." How
Bill Clinton met the challenges of this new Gilded Age is the subject of
Patrick J. Maney's book: an indepth perspective on the 42nd president of
the United States and the transformative era over which he presided.
Bill Clinton: New Gilded Age President goes beyond personality and
politics to examine the critical issues of the day: economic and fiscal
policy, business and financial deregulation, healthcare and welfare
reform, and foreign affairs in a post-Cold War world. But at its heart
is Bill Clinton in all his guises: the first baby boomer to reach the
White House; the "natural"--the most gifted politician of his
generation, but one with an inexplicably careless and selfdestructive
streak; the "Comeback Kid," repeatedly overcoming long odds; the
survivor, frequently down but never out; and, with Hillary Rodham
Clinton, part of the most controversial First Couple since Franklin and
Eleanor Roosevelt.
Maney's book is, in sum, the most succinct and uptodate study of the
Clinton presidency, invaluable not merely for understanding a
transformative era in American history, but presidential, national, and
global politics today.
