When the Clock Broke
Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | National Indie Bestseller
"Terrific . . . Vibrant . . . When the Clock Broke is one of those rarest of books: unflaggingly entertaining while never losing sight of its moral core." —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
"When the Clock Broke is leagues more insightful on the subject of Trump’s ascent than most writing that purports to address the issue directly." —Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
"Lively and kaleidoscopic." —Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker
"John Ganz is the most important young political writer of his generation—just the one our dark moment needs." —Rick Perlstein
A revelatory look back at the convulsions at the end of the Reagan era—and their dark legacy today.
With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today.
In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents. Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con” right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk” took new and ever-wilder forms. In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms. Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals” whose alienation fueled new causes. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long.
In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.
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Ganz, author of the newsletter Unpopular Front, debuts with a lucid and propulsive narrative of the failed right-wing populism at the fringe of the 1992 U.S. presidential election. According to Ganz, the discontent exploited by bigoted Republican challengers Pat Buchanan and David Duke and the proto–"drain the swamp" rhetoric of independent candidate Ross Perot laid the groundwork for Donald Trump's 2016 victory. The book profiles these and other figures—including New York City mayoral candidate Rudy Giuliani and mob boss John Gotti—and it's woven throughout with astute analysis of the period's political commentary (left-leaning historian Christopher Lasch critiqued liberalism as an "infinitely expanding universe of spoiled consumers and bureaucrats," Ganz writes, while hard-right economist Murray Rothbard hoped Buchanan would "break the clock of the New Deal" and "repeal the twentieth century"). Ganz's dry wit is ever-present; describing how media coverage of the early-1990s culture wars eclipsed George H.W. Bush's attempts to stoke the fight against Saddam Hussein, he writes, "Apparently the ‘New Hitler' wasn't as juicy a story as the incipient totalitarianism of literature professors." The book's highlight is a long chapter focused on New York City, which Ganz portrays as a breeding ground for strongman leadership by comparing Trump to Giuliani and Gotti as outer-borough "arriviste" who celebrated personal liberty, but preyed on fear. This is a revelation.
