Description
Book SynopsisTells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. This title traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business community and promote a fiscally conservative, antiregulatory, and market-oriented policy agenda to Congress and the country at large.
Trade Review"Waterhouse's Lobbying America is an intricate, well-woven history of the efforts by business to influence U.S. politics. Waterhouse tells the story of how the business community came to lobby with an increasingly unified voice against a background of societal change, shifting cultural values, and an increasingly global economy... Immediately of interest to political scientists and historians, this engaging history of business, politics, and societal change will find a wider audience among readers interested in national politics."--Choice "Lobbying America is a deeply researched, persuasively argued study that makes important contributions to our understanding of the relationship of business and politics."--Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Journal of American History "The era explored by Waterhouse is rich with complex details. Managing such complexity is a monumental task. Ultimately, Waterhouse succeeds in convincing the reader that corporate lobbyists working on 'small details and short-term benefits' supplanted lobbyists focused on 'big-ticket ideological issues.'"--Scott H. Ainsworth, Economic History Review "[Waterhouses's] focus on business lobbying is perceptive and elegantly written and Waterhouse has made an important contribution to the literature on business and politics in the twentieth century."--Gregory L. Schneider, American Historical Review
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: American Business, American Politics 1 Chapter 1: From Consensus to a Crisis of Confidence 14 Chapter 2: A New Life for Old Lobbies 46 Chapter 3: The Birth of the Business Roundtable 76 Chapter 4: Business, Labor, and the Politics of Inflation 106 Chapter 5: The Producer versus the Consumer 140 Chapter 6: Uncertain Victory: Big Business and the Politics of Regulatory Reform 174 Chapter 7: A Tale of Two Tax Cuts 201 Chapter 8: Every Man His Own Lobbyist 229 Epilogue: American Politics, American Business 255 Abbreviations 265 Notes 267 Bibliography 311 Index 325
