Quixote's Ghost: The Right, the Liberati, and the Future of Social Policy
"Invoking Don Quixote, David Stoesz tilts at windbags of all stripes. No matter who you are-left, right, or even in the middle-something in this wide ranging critique will make you furious. In a world gone as far wrong as ours has now, puncturing pomposity can't be all bad even if it isn't all good."-Peter Edelman, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center"David Stoesz has written an enormously insightful, important, and timely book-helping all of us understand some of the Right's amazing accomplishments in the war of ideas, and how progressives could and should rebound."-Ray Boshara, New America Foundation"With President Bush's re-election, the paradigm shift in American social policy chronicled herein is being consummated. David Stoesz documents a steady decline in America's enthusiasm for welfare state liberalism and the emergence of a new conservative social policy, epitomized in Bush's concept of "the ownership society." He explains why the American Left is playing defense on health, welfare, and even social security policy, and how the American Right is going on offense through rigorous empirical analysis, superior communications, and an increasingly sophisticated marketing of ideas. A penetrating analysis of the battle of ideas, no student of America's domestic politics can afford to overlook this book."-Robert Emmet Moffit, Ph.D., Director, Center for Health Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation"David Stoesz's latest book outlines a 'radical pragmatic' approach to social welfare which, he contends, offers a new and viable alternative to mainstream perspectives. His original and thought-provoking ideas deserve to be widely discussed. This is a lively, readable and enjoyable book."-James Midgley, Dean and Specht Professor of Public"A provocative look at how U.S. social welfare policy is made....provides a challenge to both Left and Right."-Michael Tanner, Director, Health & Welfare Studies, Cato Institute