Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

Rush Limbaugh once said there could be no book titled “Great Moderates in American History”; Brown (Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography), a history professor at Elizabethtown College, has taken those words as a challenge. His book profiles a series of moderate leaders, starting with John Adams and concluding with Barack Obama. Brown’s boldness in naming names may well spur a welcome discussion about the role of moderate leaders in politics. On such issues as states rights, civil rights, or international alliances, the moderate position is period-specific, and Brown too often fails to establish the necessary context and definitions. It is nearly impossible to run an ideological thread directly from one era’s iteration of a political party to the next; readers will be both tempted to try and frustrated with the results. The book assumes an in-depth knowledge of U.S. political history, stating that “the post-Appomattox thrust toward centralization gave Dixie a nostalgic glow” and “the standpatters hoped to return their party to its McKinley golden age” with no additional explanation. Jargon and name dropping aside, the author may also be on the losing side of an entirely understandable gamble: writing this book on the theory that the 2016 presidential election would be an ideological battle, when it has become something else entirely. (Jan.)