The New Deal expanded public responsibility, but reform was neither peaceful nor complete. Workers faced violence, corporations resisted union power, political institutions fought over constitutional authority, and many women and minority communities remained excluded from equal opportunity.
This edition examines the Memorial Day Massacre, the court-packing conflict, the limits of New Deal inclusion, the formation of a new political coalition, and the economic mobilization that accompanied World War II. It shows how progress was shaped by pressure from below as well as decisions in Washington.
The book presents reform as unfinished work. Democratic coalitions must be judged by whom they include, the rights they enforce, and whether their programs reach communities historically denied protection.