Andrew HartmanOvjeren akaunt

In a 2011 JAH state of the field essay, you wrote about recent volume of historiography on conservatism: “With this work done, the field has arrived at a new maturity. As a result, we now have the opportunity to move beyond the closely focused studies of movement history..."

"that have dominated the scholarship thus far & to reconsider our ideas about the relationship of the Right to the broader trends of American political history. While we now know a great deal more than we once did about the internal history of the conservative movement..."

"we're just beginning to rethink the broad sweep of the twentieth century in light of what we have learned.” Do you think scholarship since 2011 is moving in this direction? How would you survey the field now? (She dropped LOTS of historiographical knowledge in answer to this.)

We focused most of conversation on Fear City. Most surprising thing was how deep social democracy was embedded in the city prior to the crisis of 70s. Was this surprising to you? Is this a gap in our collective memory? If so, what explains the gap?

Main takeaway of Fear City seems to be that understanding this history is important to our larger understanding of the rise of neoliberalism. Which makes sense as it being a piece of your larger body of work—a sort of sequel to Invisible Hands.

A much grainier history of neoliberalism, less about an ideological movement and more about how people take advantage of a crisis. Agree with this assessment? Was this one of your objectives?

Budget crisis led to a crisis of democracy in that elites took control of the commanding heights of the city. Seems consistent with Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine about how crises allow neoliberals to restructure things to their advantage. New Orleans schools as a classic example.

But your book makes it seem that the elite had far less agency, at least in this case. What do you make of this comparison and evaluation?