Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics

A behind-the-scenes look at how democrats lost their way In the generation after World War II, voters around the world routinely split along economic lines, delivering reliable working-class majorities to parties on the left. Today, coalitions are increasingly determined by education rather than by income, driving educated professionals to the left and pushing blue-collar voters to the right. In Left Adrift historian Timothy Shenk provides a new perspective on this extraordinary shift by taking readers inside a debate that unfolded in a tiny circle of elite political strategists over how leftwing parties could win again. At the center of this argument was the question of whether the left could once again become the party of workers. Built around accounts of individuals struggling against tectonic political changes—and featuring a cast of characters that includes Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Nelson Mandela, and Benjamin Netanyahu—Left Adrift tells the story of how leftwing parties fought to hold onto the working class while reinventing themselves for a new era.