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The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution Illustrated Edition
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"Perhaps the best book ever on how Democrats lost the white working class."
-James Carville
In May 1970, four days after Kent State, construction workers chased students through downtown Manhattan, beating scores of protestors bloody. As hardhats clashed with hippies, it soon became clear that something larger was happening; Democrats were at war with themselves.
In The Hardhat Riot, David Paul Kuhn tells the fateful story--how chaotic it was, when it began, when the white working class first turned against liberalism, when Richard Nixon seized the breach, and America was forever changed. It was unthinkable one generation before: FDR's "forgotten man" siding with the party of Big
Business and, ultimately, paving the way for presidencies from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.
In the shadow of the half-built Twin Towers, on the same day the Knicks rallied against the odds and won their first championship, we relive the schism that tore liberalism apart. We experience the tumult of Nixon's America and John Lindsay's New York City, as festering division explodes into violence. Nixon's advisors realize that this tragic turn is their chance, that the Democratic coalition has collapsed and that "these, quite candidly, are our people now."
In this nail-biting story, Kuhn delivers on meticulous research and reporting, drawing from thousands of pages of never-before-seen records. We go back to a harrowing day that explains the politics of today. We experience the battle between two tribes fighting different wars, soon to become different Americas, ultimately reliving a liberal war that maimed both sides. We come to see how it all was laid bare one brutal day, when the Democratic Party's future was bludgeoned by its past, as if it was a last gasp to say that we once mattered too.
- ISBN-100190064714
- ISBN-13978-0190064716
- EditionIllustrated
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication dateJuly 1, 2020
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions9.56 x 1.25 x 6.44 inches
- Print length416 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Engrossing, well-crafted, The Hardhat Riot ... argues persuasively that the riot sparked a vast national political shift driven by a widening divide between the working class and the educated elite that has led to the era of the Trump presidency. ... Kuhn writes with empathy for both sides. ... Kuhn's accounts of the violence are vivid and raw. ... The author concludes with a sharp analysis of how the revolt of the White working class almost immediately reshaped American politics, beginning with Nixon's opportunistic claim of blue-collar Whites as "Silent Majority" supporters of his law-and-order presidency. Kuhn shows the reverberations over the decades, right up to the making of Donald Trump's political base. ... Kuhn argues that class divisions have driven people so far apart that it's as if Americans now live in 'entirely different places, even if they are still called by one name--America.'"
--The Washington Post book review
"Perhaps the best book ever on how Democrats lost the white working class. The Hardhat Riot is a great read, but also a must-read to understand the voters that Democrats neglected at their own peril."
--James Carville, former Chief Strategist for President Bill Clinton
"Over the past 15 years few writers have covered this realignment with the consistency of David Paul Kuhn, whose warnings about the reasons white working people were moving away from the Democrats were largely dismissed by the news media and party elites ... Mr. Kuhn remained an unacknowledged prophet. ... Now he has synthesized his message with a lesson from history: The Hardhat Riot, a riveting account of ... [a] clash on the streets of New York [that] came to symbolize the irreconcilable division taking shape in the rest of the country. ... Mr. Kuhn avoids polemics and judgment, yet leads the reader to understand the deeper questions implicit in so many of today's political debates. ... The Hardhat Riot insightfully explains why and how this happened. Perhaps the Democratic Party's leaders will finally understand what David Paul Kuhn has been trying to tell them."
--Jim Webb, The Wall Street Journal book review
"The Hardhat Riot, by David Paul Kuhn, vividly evokes . . . a blue-collar rampage whose effects still ripple, not the least of them being Donald Trump's improbable ascension to the presidency . . . this is a compelling narrative."
--The New York Times Book Review
"[An] outstanding new book . . . through dogged research . . . combining eyewitness reports with his own gifted storytelling to craft a riveting narrative. In our current intellectual climate, which seems to prize tendentiousness, it is rare to find such a clear-eyed and non-polemical work of history."
--National Review
"This is red-meat history with a hot splash of tabasco. David Paul Kuhn brings to life a period that is not only fascinating in itself but also illuminates the age of Donald Trump. If you want to understand how blue-collar Americans came to feel so disparaged and deplored, The Hardhat Riot is a great place to start. A truly captivating read."
--Robert Guest, Foreign Editor, The Economist
"David Paul Kuhn's Hardhat Riot captures a seminal but long-neglected turning point in the steady erosion of Democratic support among the core of the New Deal Coalition. The May 8, 1970, confrontation--AKA, 'Bloody Friday'--between anti-war protestors, mostly students, and tough, unionized construction workers determined to demonstrate their support of American troops in Vietnam, marked the start of the split between a well-educated elite and an increasingly discontented working class, a split that over time produced the election of Donald Trump. This book is crucial for anyone seeking to understand the politics of 2020 and beyond."
--Thomas B. Edsall, Contributing Opinion Writer, The New York Times
"David Paul Kuhn's revealing new book . . . does two things remarkably well. It reconstructs a detailed, compelling, and coherent narrative of the riot, assembled from what must have seemed a morass of contradictory sources. The book also provides critical context for the riot, documenting the mounting alienation of the white working class from the ascendant New Left, and arguing convincingly for the Hardhat Riot not so much as the day that turned the tide, but as an unmistakable harbinger of political shifts in the offing, a moment when unlikely symbols of Nixon's Silent Majority roared back, giving voice to grievances that persist to this day."
--New York Journal of Books
"Vivid." --Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic
"I picked up David Paul Kuhn's The Hardhat Riot with the intention of skimming and found myself engrossed, reading every page. Well-written, painstakingly researched, this is an important book that gives life to history and explains the divorce between working-class whites and the Democratic Party, and yet rarer still, is also a real pleasure to read."
--Charlie Cook, Editor and Publisher of The Cook Political Report
"President Trump's reelection bid rests as much as anything on the political loyalty and fealty of his blue-collar base. That they're such a factor in 2020 reflects one of the biggest shifts in American politics over the last half-century-plus. David Paul Kuhn explains why in his important new book . . . As an author, Kuhn was in many ways prescient about the rise of Trump's coalition nearly a decade before it happened . . . Kuhn's latest work explains in elegant and expert fashion how he won so much support among blue-collar white voters in the first place."
--Washington Examiner book review
"Hardhat Riot is an arresting and often chilling narrative of the events that drove a wedge between white working-class voters and the Democratic Party, setting America on the road to today's right-wing populism. I couldn't stop reading it. If you want to understand why cultural issues became central to our politics, read this book."
--William Galston, former policy advisor to President Clinton and Senior Fellow, the Brookings Institution
"Kuhn makes use of masterful, disturbing imagery to capture the clash . . . his narration is candid . . . the perspectives of both sides are shared without favoritism--only the facts. The text is fascinating as it traces the political breakdown that became the platform upon which Nixon built a new base. . . . Hardhat Riot is a timely review of a historical event that contains a reminder that class divisions also create opportunities within politics."
--Foreword Reviews
"Trenchant. . . A welcome resurrection of a forgotten riot with relevance for our current fragmented political landscape." --Kirkus
"A gripping history of a moment when two visions of America clashed--with fists flying--throughout the Wall Street district. The Hard-Hat Riot excavates conflicts over protest politics, American military power, and the party loyalties of the white working class that remain with us half a century later."
--Beverly Gage, Professor of History and American Studies, Yale University
"Sometimes events that are long forgotten have reverberations that dominate our times. In Hardhat Riot, David Paul Kuhn skillfully shows how the split between traditionally Democratic constituencies--blue collar workers and militant students--eerily foreshadows the bitter political splits of our time."
--Michael Barone, author of The Almanac of American Politics and Emeritus Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
"David Paul Kuhn has breathed new life into an uproarious seminal event in modern political history, skillfully tracing fault lines running from the late 1960s up to the present. A timely, smart, adrenalin-fueled account conveyed with you-are-there immediacy."
--Laurence Bergreen, author of Over the Edge of the World
"David Paul Kuhn details, with much new research, the changing political conditions before and after the spring of 1970, when Nixon saw the opportunity after the May 8 Hardhat Riot. No previous book has so convincingly documented how important this single event was in changing the class base of both the Republican and Democratic parties."
--Joan Hoff, former president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency
"It's about how elitist politicians left white, blue-collar workers feeling sold out. It's about how those lifelong Democrats--mostly Catholic, ethnic, union--began looking for a new home in the Republican Party. And it's about how that day changed American politics, perhaps forever. Kuhn has written a lot about the white working class, and he writes about the '60s here from its anguished perspective. Blue-collar workers saw liberal legislators as snobby, spoiled young radicals. The workers felt demeaned, even demonized. Finally, they demanded their own revolution."
--New York Daily News book review
"Largely through the microcosm of New York City, David Paul Kuhn's The Hardhat Riot delves deeply into the estrangement of the Democratic Party from America's blue-collar workers. For all of its fascinating detail of the travails of America's metropolis, The Hardhat Riot also offers a broad and rich panorama of American politics of the past 50 years and the most persuasive explanation for the rise of Donald Trump that has yet appeared."
--Ross K. Baker, Professor of American Government, Rutgers University
Book Description
About the Author
Kuhn has held senior writing positions across the political-media landscape, from Politico to CBSnews.com. He has also written for The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, New Republic, National Review, and Los Angeles Times, among others, and regularly appeared on networks ranging from BBC to Fox News. As the Macmillan Speakers Bureau described him, "David Paul Kuhn is an expert analyst of presidential and gender politics." He is also the author of the political novel "What Makes It Worthy" ("A love story and an exposé on modern American campaigns," Kirkus) and "The Neglected Voter" ("A brilliantly insightful analysis of American politics," General Wes Clark).
Kuhn has covered four presidential campaigns and politics from Washington to the United Nations, and driven across the United States for CBS News documenting Americans' lives and outlooks. He has reported on events from the epicenter of the collapse of the World Trade Center to North Korean backroom nuclear negotiations. Earlier in his career, he reported on the United States for the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Shimbun, the world's most widely circulated newspaper.
- Read more about him: DavidPaulKuhn.com. He can be reached at DPK4Media@Gmail.com
Product details
- Publisher : Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (July 1, 2020)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0190064714
- ISBN-13 : 978-0190064716
- Item Weight : 1.65 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.56 x 1.25 x 6.44 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,055,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #873 in Government Social Policy
- #1,278 in Law Enforcement Politics
- #4,315 in History & Theory of Politics
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
David Paul Kuhn is a writer, investigative reporter and political analyst living in New York City. He is the author of, most recently, "THE HARDHAT RIOT: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution," which the New York Times named one of the "100 Notable Books of 2020." This "riveting book" (Jill Lepore, The New Yorker) is "engrossing, well-crafted ... sharp" (Washington Post book review), a "crucial" book on the "split between a well-educated elite and an increasingly discontented working class" (Tom Edsall, New York Times), and is "perhaps the best book ever on how Democrats lost the white working class" (political strategist James Carville).
Kuhn has held senior writing positions across the political-media landscape, from Politico to CBSnews.com. He has also written for The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, New Republic, National Review, and Los Angeles Times, among others, and regularly appeared on networks ranging from BBC to Fox News. As the Macmillan Speakers Bureau described him, "David Paul Kuhn is an expert analyst of presidential and gender politics." He is also the author of the political novel "What Makes It Worthy" ("A love story and an exposé on modern American campaigns," Kirkus) and "The Neglected Voter" ("A brilliantly insightful analysis of American politics," General Wes Clark).
Kuhn has covered four presidential campaigns and politics from Washington to the United Nations, and driven across the United States for CBS News documenting Americans' lives and outlooks. He has reported on events from the epicenter of the collapse of the World Trade Center to North Korean backroom nuclear negotiations. Earlier in his career, he reported on the United States for the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Shimbun, the world's most widely circulated newspaper.
- Read more about him: DavidPaulKuhn.com. He can be reached at DPK4Media@Gmail.com
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Customers find the book engaging and informative. They appreciate the well-researched and accurate history of events that led to modern times. The writing style is considered clear and fact-based, which customers appreciate. Overall, it's a great read that provides useful insights into the political landscape.
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Customers find the book readable and engaging. They describe it as an important literary opus that provides a detailed review of the early stages of modern history. Readers also mention the book keeps their attention with its detail.
"...An EXCELLENT READ!!" Read more
"...into today's MAGA Caps will find this well-written book of great interest...." Read more
"Great read. Very detailed and well researched...." Read more
"This is an original and great book!..." Read more
Customers find the book an accurate and relevant history of events that led to today's political climate. They appreciate the well-researched content with photos and facts, as well as its detailed chronicling of the riots. The book provides an important historical corrective and viewpoint.
"This is an incredibly important, well researched accurate history of the events that led us up to the polarization we see in America today...." Read more
"...The premise of the book is simple enough; a group of construction workers take offense with a group of liberal students protesting, and we end up..." Read more
"...This book is the story - - -and I would say it is an important historical corrective as well as a viewpoint of how the Vietnam War demonstrations..." Read more
"Great read. Very detailed and well researched...." Read more
Customers find the book well-written and factual.
"...of Seventies Hardhats into today's MAGA Caps will find this well-written book of great interest...." Read more
"...It is also very well written. So I highly recommend." Read more
"This is a great read and explains a lot. Well written and researched it's fact-based, which is refreshing in today's environment...." Read more
"This was a wonderfully written, insightful book that couldn't be more relevant in today's political climate...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2022This is an incredibly important, well researched accurate history of the events that led us up to the polarization we see in America today. I can attest to the accuracy of this forgotten mega-riot that dwarfed the Capital riot on January 6th - because I was there. I was a freshman at Pace College as lower Manhattan was overrun with construction workers beating anyone who appeared to be against the war. Police looked the other way and hundreds were brutalized.
The real clarity comes when the author connects the dots the Richard Nixon, recognizing that the Hard Hats could be manipulated and used as tools for his agenda. Hence the genesis of the "Silent Majority" and the "America Right or WronG" movement which evolved into the MAGA movement and amplified by the incitement of Donald Trump. White working class Americans have long been ignored, victimized and unheard and this book is a historical record of the journey from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump. Read it and you will get a clearer understanding of how we got here. An EXCELLENT READ!!
- Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2020Over the last 20 years, many historians have tried to explain the rise of Conservatism and how we went from a very liberal president (FDR) to a president that many consider to be the antithesis of liberalism (Trump). This book, the Hardhat Riot, really helps to explain what happened and why.
The premise of the book is simple enough; a group of construction workers take offense with a group of liberal students protesting, and we end up with a physical conflagration. But that's not the key here, although the author does a fantastic job of chronicling the events of the riot. The real key here is to understand how Richard Nixon took this event and catapulted it into a new focus within the Republican party - labor.
Kuhn persuasively argues that class was a huge issue in this rise, and that this is characterized by the riot - look at how the cops "looked the other way" when the "hardhats" were pummeling students. Why? Because the workers & the police were both of the same socioeconomic class.
As others have said, the Democratic party should analyze the contents of this book to better understand how they lost the working class, and take that knowledge to figure out how to become more relevant in today's society.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2022- The Hardhat Riot by David Kuhn
In the Spring of 1970, after the Kent State killing of students by national guard troops, there were demonstrations all over the Country, a march on Washington and throughout the streets of New York. I came across this book this Spring in the New York Times book review just before my 50th law school graduation, by zoom.
One such demonstration by students was to be in the financial district and a number of my classmates went to be legal monitors. They were beaten up by construction workers.
This book is the story - - -and I would say it is an important historical corrective as well as a viewpoint of how the Vietnam War demonstrations were a loss to the Democratic Party. Its a very different view than what we normally find in the academic analysis of the "liberals" and the Nixon "racist" counter. Very different.
The book is in three parts. The first part is the background of the events with a detailed description of New York at that time during the Lindsey administration and the media centered focus on the City at that time. It fairly deals with the Vietnam War buildup, the 1968 election including the riots during the Democratic Convention in Chicago and the Nixon election over Humphrey.
The second section deals with the demonstration and counter-demonstrations and the violence during it. It is perhaps too much, giving at times a minute by minute account and block by block description of events.
The third section is the aftermath. Here is the surprise.
The author's research conclusion is that the counter by the construction workers from the World Trade Center and one other building then under construction was spontaneous eruption at the students. it was not, he writes, part of a plan by the Union or by the Republican Party. The later were taken wholly by surprise. Rather it was a cultural event largely led by men who had served in WWII and the Korean War who reacted in fierce anger at the anti-Americanism of the students, especially their disrespect for the American Flag and the flying of the Vietnamese flag.
More, it was Nixon, a policy "liberal", certainly on civil rights, who was envious of those who had gone to Ivy League Schools and who excluded him from social acceptability who saw a political opportunity to cleave the working class from the Democratic Party on cultural, patriotic and educational differences. It was that turn, by the Nixon Administration and its message, that lead, Kuhn writes, to the Nixon landslide in 1972 over McGovern. But for the Watergate scandal, the "moderate" Republicans might not have lost in 1976 etc, The GOPs turning ever more "rightward" is further exploitation of that division in education and media driven culture.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2020Readers interested in the evolution of Seventies Hardhats into today's MAGA Caps will find this well-written book of great interest. If I had to choose just one depressing data point out of many covered in the book, it would be this: "Construction workers never earned again what they did in 1973..." and "when adjusted for inflation, the median American man still earned roughly the same {today} as he did in 1973." (pages 290, 377) The hardhats of 1970 could still buy houses and pay for their kids in college. Today, the working class (and much of the middle class) can only keep its head above water by working two jobs (when they can find two), working longer hours, finding jobs for women, renting rather than buying houses, borrowing money to send kids to college, and maxing out credit cards. To add insult to injury, our Treasury Secretary wants to eliminate the temporary $ 600. monthly unemployment add on because he thinks it's preventing lazy workers from going back to their stagnant take home paying jobs. In 1973, Steve Mnuchin was the eleven year old son of a Goldman Sachs banker, where Steve himself would one day be on the payroll. Today he is worth more than half a billion dollars. Being born on third base is a good place to start life. What kind of hats are around the corner? Stay tuned.
Top reviews from other countries
- Mike SReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars 50 years on and almost back to square one
An incident 50 years ago with similarities with today brought back to life as if it, or something very similar could actually have happened very recently with a different cast of characters but with very similar underlying differences between the different sides of the cultural and social divide. The writer of course could not have foreseen such a coincidence. This is written as reportage, with not an overuse of subjective taking of sides. Sympathy for one group or the other shifts as the events unfold. It could almost be a thriller or a war story such is the skill of the writer. A book about real event of 50 years ago with many parallels of today but also a riveting telling of it where the reader is swept along by the course of events and the brilliance of the author in holding our attention.
- Robert Sean FontaineReviewed in Japan on January 22, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Delivery met expectations
Delivery met expectations