During the early 1940s, as the United States waged an international war against the Axis powers abroad, intense Congressional battles over the future of the New Deal state were fought at home. Nancy Beck Young's Why We Fight challenges the illusion of wartime cooperative Congressional behaviour by drawing attention to the ongoing ideological conflict between liberals and conservatives on Capitol Hill. The outcome of these battles, centring on economic, social justice and national security policy, would prove decisive in determining the dominant patterns of postwar US politics.

In the late 1930s, disillusionment with the perceived excesses of liberalism propelled a new mode of conservatism which sought to prevent the federal government “leviathan” becoming permanent. US entry into World War II provided conservatives an opportunity, with Republicans and conservative Democrats arguing that high employment and wartime fiscal demands necessitated an end to New Deal programs. Liberals, however, continued to endorse statist solutions, including strong regulation of the economy and policies to ensure equal rights for all Americans.

By focussing on the role of Congress in wartime decision-making, rather than the executive, Why We Fight enhances our understanding of why in the 1940s warfare state liberalism came to prevail over welfare state liberalism. Young's impressive research confirms that the exigencies of wartime governance created conditions where moderates were empowered. In the middle of statist-versus-antistatist debates, Congressional moderates were key in breaking the inertia, often determining the fate of both economic and social-justice policy. Young convincingly argues that moderates played an important role in sustaining a strong federal government, but one which increasingly invested heavily in national defence rather than social welfare. The New Deal's core reforms were protected, but those deemed temporary experiments – such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Youth Administration and the Works Progress Administration – were disbanded. Young also sees moderates as unreliable on social-justice questions, often unwilling forcefully to challenge the conservative coalition on wartime refugee policy, civil rights reform, and the antidemocratic abuses of the Congressional anticommunists.

The weight Young gives to moderates challenges perceptions that in the late 1930s and early 1940s conservatives gained control of legislative politics. She arranges her examination thematically, analyzing Congressional battles over the economy, labour, refugee policy, civil rights, and anticommunism. The author rightly begins with economic policy conflicts over resource management, which proved the most “intractable” of the war years. These debates were dominated by ideological and legislative–executive tensions. Conservatives sought to eliminate New Deal regulatory policies, protect business profits, and secure more power for the legislative branch of government, while liberals supported redistributive economics and protection of the New Deal. Young states that in this realm “the center left moderates possessed the political pragmatism necessary for compromise” (74). Moderates enabled the passage of tax and price-control legislation which made permanent an activist state, but dismantled some New Deal social-welfare programs. On labour policy, Congress enacted limited antistrike measures, rejected manpower mobilization, and provided meagre funding for the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Despite these developments' disappointing both liberal unions and the business community, Young sees them as a narrow victory for moderates and liberals in the retention of New Deal initiatives.

However, on social-justice issues, moderates were less reliable. Young skilfully explains how the workings of the Congressional seniority and committee systems gave racially conservative southern Democrats disproportionate power. Combined with a predilection among moderates for prioritizing economic policy over social-justice policy, concerns among liberals about alienating white southern Democrats, and a lack of presidential leadership on social-justice issues, immigration, civil rights and refugee reforms remained limited. Young is also excellent in her analysis of the impact of wartime anticommunism on the fate of the New Deal. She sees the House leadership's endorsement of the Dies Committee as key to empowering Congressional red-baiters who were eager to conflate liberalism with communist subversion. A liberal weakness in the face of specious charges and a moderate and conservative tendency to overlook civil liberties abuses in favour of war-related issues resulted in an entrenched Dies Committee who would inspire the anticommunist excesses of the postwar era.

Young's important and original study of Congress during World War II greatly enhances our understanding of why a centrist reform tradition came to dominate US politics in the 1940s and beyond. Key to this transformation were Congressional moderates who, amidst ideological warfare on Capitol Hill, recast the interventionist state, replacing its redistributive focus with an emphasis on national security. Why We Fight is essential reading for those interested in American politics and the emergence of the modern warfare state.