What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by ThomasFrankReview by: Walter Russell MeadForeign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2004), p. 151Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20034168 .

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recounts the story of his personal conversion from Islam to evangelical Christianity

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Bank and beyond in order to avoid a similar fate. Evans, another Christian Zionist whose book jacket features sup portive quotes from Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert, also urges the United States to support Israel as a way of earning God's blessing. Those concerned with the development of American public opinion and its influence on foreign policy need to increase their awareness of this litera ture; those who wish to change our foreign policy must learn to engage with it.

pouring off the presses. Written by a man of the left, What's the Matter with Kansas? examines the rise of ultracon servative politics in the state that was once known for agrarian populism. The new activists, Frank says, are lower middle- and working-class people-in past decades, the backbone of social democratic politics in Kansas. Why, Frank asks, do working-class Kansans labor to support a right-wing agenda that will strip them of social benefits, lower their wages, and provide enor

mous tax windfalls to the rich? Frank's eye is keen, and his pen is nimble; his answers are sadly conventional. He sees the contemporary Democratic Party as an odious mix of economic conservatism (the Democratic Leader ship Council) and decadent social liberalism (Hollywood), and with the two parties united on antiworker eco nomics, Kansas voters act rationally

when they choose the party that at least pretends to respect their social values.

A sharp turn to the economic left, Frank believes, will ultimately revive Democratic fortunes and stop the New Right in its tracks. Many thoughtful and spirited people have reached this conclusion in the past; none ever man aged to build the powerful socialist party of their dreams. Perhaps Frank will succeed where others have failed.

Power, Terror, Peace, and War:.America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk. BY WALTER RUSSELL MEAD. New York,

Knopf, 2004, 240 pp. $19.95.

Mead, the author of SpecialProvidence, has turned his attention to contemporary affairs in an effort to illuminate the U.S. predica

ment in the aftermath of September n.

What's The Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart ofAmerica. BY THOMAS FRANK. New York: Metro

politan Books, 2004,320 pp. $24.00. This fresh and engaging book stands out in the torrent of political screeds now

F O R E I G N AF FA I R S November/December2004 [151]

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