The Boston Globe, Alyssa Haywoode
Shifting the Color Line is an enlightening look at America's failure to ask, without racist or political motives, how poor people can make progress. It is also, however, a book policy wonks will love but casual readers may find difficult. Lieberman uses dry language and detailed statistical explanations. For the determined reader, however, the book is an intense history course that bypasses decades of deceptive rhetoric to get to the core issues of the welfare debate.


Alyssa Haywoode, Boston Globe
"[A]n intense history course that bypasses decades of deceptive rhetoric to get to the core issues of the welfare debate.


Book Description
Winner of the President's Book Award of the Social Science History Association Winner of the 1999 Lionel Trilling Book Award of Columbia University Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Prize of Harvard University Press Shifting the Color Line explores the historical and political roots of enduring racial conflict in American welfare policy, beginning with the New Deal. Through Social Security and other social insurance programs, white workers were successfully integrated into a strong national welfare state. At the same time, African-Americans--then as now disproportionately poor--were relegated to the margins of the welfare state, through decentralized, often racist, public assistance programs. Racial distinctions were thus built into the very structure of the American welfare state. By keeping poor blacks at arm's length while embracing white workers, national welfare policy helped to construct the contemporary political divisions that define the urban underclass. "A true understanding of welfare, Robert C. Lieberman argues in his provocative book, requires a hard look not at stereotypes but at history . . . Shifting the Color Line is an enlightening look at America's failure to ask, without racist or political motives, how poor people can make progress . . . The book is an intense history course that bypasses decades of deceptive rhetoric to get to the core issues of the welfare debate." --Alyssa Haywoode, Boston Globe "Robert Lieberman has written the best analysis available of how race structured the foundation of the American welfare state. It is a major achievement . . . combining historical depth with theoretical sophistication. All students of U.S. welfare and race politics will need to consult it." --Desmond King, Political Science Quarterly Robert C. Lieberman is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Columbia University.


About the Author
Robert C.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Despite the substantial economic and political strides that African-Americans have made in this century, welfare remains an issue that sharply divides Americans by race. Shifting the Color Line explores the historical and political roots of enduring racial conflict in American welfare policy, beginning with the New Deal.

FROM THE CRITICS

Alyssa Haywoode - Boston Globe

A true understanding of welfare, Robert C. Lieberman argues in his provocative book, requires a hard look not at stereotypes but at history. Built into the early architecture of social welfare programs, are nasty political fights and rigged compromises over race and class. To make his point, Lieberman plays bureaucratic archeologist, unearthing and comparing the administrative structures of three social welfare programs: Old-Age Insurance, Aid to Dependent Children, and Unemployment Insurance...Shifting the Color Line is an enlightening look at America's failure to ask, without racist or political motives, how poor people can make progress...The book is an intense history course that bypasses decades of deceptive rhetoric to get to the core issues of the welfare debate.

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