December 9, 2003
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
Political commentator Kevin Phillips presents the fascinating lecture American Dynasty: Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
Summary Facts:
- Kevin Phillips
- American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
- Author of Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich
- Contributing columnist to the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal
- Sunday, January 11
- 3 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
- General public: $8 / UCSB students: $6
- Tickets & Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535
Kevin Phillips, author of the eye-opening bestseller Wealth and Democracy, has been a political commentator for over three decades. Phillips will present the lecture American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, adapted from his just published book of the same name, on Sunday, January 11 at 3 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall.
In American Dynasty onetime Republican White House strategist Kevin Phillips reveals how four generations of the Bush family have ascended the ladder of national power since World War I. Phillips argues that through a recurrent flair for old-boy networking, national security involvement and political deception, the Bushes have become entrenched within the American establishment—Yale, Wall Street, the Senate, the CIA, the vice presidency and the presidency. By uncovering relationships and connecting facts with new clarity, Phillips proposes that the Bush family has systematically used its financial and social empire, which he argues makes them an “aristocracy,” to gain the White House, thereby subverting the very core of American democracy. In their ambition, the Bushes ultimately reinvented themselves with brilliant timing, twisting and turning from silver spoon Yankees to born-again evangelical Texans. The New York Times Book Review noted in 1993 that “through more than 25 years of analysis and prediction, nobody has been as transcendentally right about the outlines of American political change as Phillips has.”
Kevin Phillips’ reputation as America’s leading political analyst dates from the success and prescience of his book The Emerging Republican Majority which was written in 1967, used in the 1968 Republican Party presidential campaign and published in 1969. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes, “The success of the GOP’s so-called ‘Southern strategy’ made Phillips a prophet with honor, certainly in his own party, but he gradually lost interest in a career as a political policy wonk.”
He instead turned his attention to history, writing well-received books including the biography William McKinley (2003), part of the prestigious American Presidents Series edited by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and The Cousin’s Wars: Religion, Politics and the Triumph of Anglo-America (2000), a far-reaching exploration of the connections among the English Civil War, the American Revolution and the U.S. Civil War.
Phillips is perhaps best known, however, for his insightful analyses of economics and power. He published the national bestseller The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath in 1990, a book called “a consistently stimulating piece of work” by Nicholas Lemann in the Washington Post. His 1995 book Arrogant Capital examined the creation of an “entrenched” Washington, D.C. run by lobbyists and lifetime political operators and warned of a downfall similar to formerly mighty and arrogant capitals like Rome, Madrid and Amsterdam.
In his 2002 book Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, Phillips turns his attention to the United States’ history of great wealth and power, a sweeping cavalcade from the American Revolution to what he calls “the Second Gilded Age” at the turn of the twenty-first century. Widely acknowledging Phillips as one of the nation’s most perceptive thinkers, reviewers have called him our “modern Thomas Paine.”
Phillips charts the ongoing American saga of great wealth—how it has been accumulated, its shifting sources, and its ups and downs over more than two centuries. He explores how the rich and politically powerful have frequently worked together to create or perpetuate privilege, often at the expense of the national interest and usually at the expense of the middle and lower classes.
The former editor-publisher of The American Political Report, Phillips is a contributing columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal, and a regular commentator for National Public Radio. He was a commentator for CBS TV News at the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Democratic and Republican National conventions.
Courtesy of UCSB Bookstore, books by Kevin Phillips will be available for purchase and signing at the event. This event is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.