With Nelson Lichtenstein, Distinguished Professor, University of California at Santa Barbara.

In this talk, award-winning American historian Nelson Lichtenstein will explain that the neoliberal globalization and rustbelt decline, against which Donald Trump polemicized so effectively in 2016 was hardly an inevitability at the outset of the Clinton presidency. The Republicans of the Reagan-Bush 1980s were far more ambivalent about free trade and financialization than conventional wisdom holds; more important, the Clintonites came into office with an abundance of plans for reorganizing American capitalism, from the “managed trade” designed to aid Detroit and Pittsburgh to health insurance reform and an initiative to begin the reorganization of American work life. Clinton’s failure had many sources, personal and political, but perhaps the most important was that his team failed to appreciate the degree to which corporate and financial power had already divorced itself from the confines of a nation-state over which Clinton presided and sought to reform.

This event is presented by the Department of American and Canadian Studies.

This is a free event. All welcome. Booking is required.

Book your place at clintontalk.eventbrite.com.