In his latest work, Marc J. Hetherington provides an engaging and thoughtful rationale for the apparent demise of liberalism in the United States. However, despite rumours to the contrary, Hetherington suggests that the reports of liberalism's demise may be greatly exaggerated. Over the course of 176 pages, Hetherington details the plight of liberalism in the later years of the twentieth century, in particular the apparent decline in public support for redistributive policies such as welfare and race-targeted programmes.

Using a wide array of charts and diagrams, Hetherington plots the history of the last forty-five years, but does so in an effort to demonstrate not a lack of liberalism during that period, but rather the demise in trust in the federal government to deliver the aforementioned policies. It is this facet of the book that makes it so prescient. At a time when many are questioning the future of liberalism in the face of an apparent conservative juggernaut, it is well worth noting the underlying tendencies in the United States and the liberal concepts upon which the nation was founded and which have shaped much of its history.

Hetherington admonishes politicians for failing to show the courage of their convictions and for failing to defend their liberal creed. His text seeks to demonstrate that liberals need to start taking the fight to the conservatives again if they are to regain the influence that they once held at a national level. Yet, according to Hetherington, politicians have brought much of this upon themselves by proving themselves unworthy of public trust and support. From Vietnam to Watergate, from Iran–Contra to Whitewater, successive generations of politicians appear to have done little to ingratiate themselves or their profession to the American public. With this decline in public trust has come a rejection of large federal programmes, designed to aid those who suffer in society.

President Clinton comes in for particular criticism for failing to identify the distinction between this lack of trust in the federal government and a national move towards conservatism. This may well be the case, but Hetherington perhaps fails to account for the changing political landscape through which Clinton was attempting to govern. Despite this, Marc J. Hetherington has produced a timely and easily accessible text that raises many questions, proposes a number of solutions and reinforces the liberal tradition of the United States.