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The Failed Welfare Revolution: America's Struggle over Guaranteed Income Policy. By Brian Steensland. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. xvi, 304 pp. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-691-12714-9.)
After working for the Richard M. Nixon administration, Senator Daniel Patrick Moyni-han wrote a self-serving and intellectually playful account of Nixon's failed attempt to pass the Family Assistance Plan. Now, nearly two generations later, a book comes along that tries to place the battle for a guaranteed annual income in a larger historical context. Less entertaining than Moynihan's account, Brian Steensland's book is at least as enlightening. It carries the freight of the sociologist concerned with making a theoretical contribution to his field, yet it also benefits from careful archival research that leads to an intriguing historical narrative.
In Steensland's account, Nixon made...