Was There Ever a Neoliberal Order?

Academic Gary Gerstle’s new book, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era, is wholly shaped by his claim that American political history since 1930 has been dominated by two political orders, each “a constellation of ideologies, policies, and constituencies that shape American politics in ways that endure . . . beyond election cycles.” That the whole of the last nearly 100 years of American political history can be neatly accounted for in a discussion of just two political orders is startling.