In this nuanced look at white working-class life and politics, Kenneth Durr takes readers into the neighborhoods, workplaces, and community institutions of blue-collar Baltimore in the decades after World War II. Challenging notions that the ""white backlash"" of the 1960s and 1970s was driven by increasing race resentment, Durr details the rise of a working-class populism shaped by mistrust of postwar liberalism in the face of urban decline. Exploring the effects of desegregation, deindustrialization, recession, and the rise of urban crime, Durr shows how legitimate economic, social, and political grievances convinced white working-class Baltimoreans that they were threatened more by the actions of liberal policymakers than by the incursions of urban blacks. While acknowledging the parochialism and racial exclusivity of white working-class life, Durr adopts an empathetic view of workers and their institutions. Behind the Backlash melds ethnic, labor, and political history to paint a rich portrait of urban life - and the sweeping social and economic changes that reshaped America's cities and politics in the late twentieth century.

About the Author
Kenneth D. Durr is director of the History Division at History Associates Incorporated in Rockville, Maryland.


Reviews
"A substantial addition to the literature on working-class politics, the white backlash, the decline of the New Deal coalition, and the Democratic Party's loss of connection with working-class, urban, ethnic voters." - Ronald P. Formisano, author of Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s



Book Information
ISBN 9780807854334
Author Kenneth D. Durr
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
Publisher The University of North Carolina Press
Weight(grams) 435g