The endlessly fascinating 1968 presidential race transformed American politics in ways that are still being felt. Aram Goudsouzian explores the characters who shaped that race in The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America (UNC Press, 2019). Goudsouzian argues the campaign marked the end of the “Old Politics” of party machines, and the rise of the “New Politics” in which candidates more robustly engaged voters. And it marked the decline of the Democratic coalition of white Southerners and northern urbanites, setting back progressivism and buoying conservatism. Goudsouzian gives readers in-depth portrayals of the motley collection of politicians who clashed that year, including Lyndon Johnson, Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller and George Wallace. As you read about the political and cultural divisions that rocked American in 1968, it won’t be hard to detect parallels in our politics today.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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