White Ethnic New York: Jews, Catholics, and the Shaping of Postwar Politics / Edition 1

by Joshua M. Zeitz

Overview

Historians of postwar American politics often identify race as a driving force in the dynamically shifting political culture. Joshua Zeitz instead places religion and ethnicity at the fore, arguing that ethnic conflict among Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics, and Jews in New York City had a decisive impact on the shape of liberal politics long before black-white racial identity politics entered the political lexicon.

Understanding ethnicity as an intersection of class, national origins, and religion, Zeitz demonstrates that the white ethnic populations of New York had significantly diverging views on authority and dissent, community and individuality, secularism and spirituality, and obligation and entitlement. New York Jews came from Eastern European traditions that valued dissent and encouraged political agitation; their Irish and Italian Catholic neighbors tended to value commitment to order, deference to authority, and allegiance to church and community. Zeitz argues that these distinctions ultimately helped fracture the liberal coalition of the Roosevelt era, as many Catholics bolted a Democratic Party increasingly focused on individual liberties, and many dissent-minded Jews moved on to the antiliberal New Left.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807857984
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	05/28/2007
Edition description:	1
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Joshua M. Zeitz is lecturer in history at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. He is author of Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments.....................xi
Introduction........................1
1 Communities......................11
2 Dissent..........................39
3 Authority........................61
4 Fascism..........................89
5 Communism........................114
6 Race.............................141
7 Reaction.........................171
8 Upheaval.........................196
Conclusion..........................223
Notes...............................229
Index...............................269

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In a truly perceptive analysis, Joshua Zeitz sensitively examines the differing attitudes of New York's postwar Catholics and Jews toward authority, community, dissent, and hierarchy. White Ethnic New York is a must read for all scholars of the history of post-World-War II American politics, law, and culture.—William E. Nelson, Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law, New York University.

This is an important book that will engage many readers with a persuasive yet controversial argument about a central feature of the postwar United States: the collapse of the New Deal coalition. The research is solid—at times stunning—and Zeitz writes with flair.—John T. McGreevy, author of Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth Century Urban North

White Ethnic New York is an exciting, provocative book. Zeitz draws on Jewish traditions of dissent and Catholic traditions of authority to explain why the politics of New York's ethnic groups diverged in the postwar era. The book is a powerfully written analysis of the breakdown of the New Deal Democratic coalition in the 1960s and 1970s, with conservatism on the one side, and liberalism and radicalism on the other. Zeitz offers great insight into the relationship between religion and politics in a secularizing age.—Gerald Gamm, author of Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed

Editorial Reviews

New York's liberal coalition was arguably the strongest in the country, but as Joshua Zeitz shows in White Ethnic New York, his fine new book on Catholic and Jewish politics in New York City, that coalition was fragile, even in its postwar heyday.—The Nation

Provocative. . . . Zeitz provokes and challenges assumptions, thus contributing to our understanding of a changing political landscape.—Jewish Book World

Valuable for students of ethnic politics.—Journal of American History

A complex yet intriguing story. . . . Almost every critical reader will be surprised.—Journal of American Ethnic History

An interesting and, at times, trenchant account of ethnic relations after the war.—The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

A valuable contribution to the study of the ethnic and religious experience in New York.—Catholic Historical Review

A fascinating account. . . . Supported by the rich material [Zeitz] has so ably presented. . . . The general reader will be fully rewarded for whatever effort it takes to read this book.—National Jewish Post and Opinion

A richly textured analysis of ethnicity, religion, and class. . . . Essential reading for Catholic historians and for anyone interested in understanding late twentieth-century urbanization.—American Catholic Studies

Does a fine job of weaving personal stories with larger doctrinal ideologies and popular narratives. A useful corrective to the overly simple postwar story of ethnic pluralism.—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

A valuable and provocative exploration. . . . Offers us a perspective into the postwar era that is complex and fresh.—H-Net

From the Publisher