Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 515
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-5381-0978-6 • Paperback • December 2017 • $36.00 • (£30.00)
978-1-5381-0979-3 • eBook • December 2017 • $34.00 • (£25.00)
Ira Shapiro has worked in senior positions in the U.S. Senate and served as a leading U.S. trade negotiator, ultimately earning the rank of ambassador. He resides in Potomac, Maryland.
Prologue
1977
Chapter 1: The Grind
Chapter 2: The Natural
Chapter 3: Great Expectations, Different Agendas
Chapter 4: Hawk and Dove
Chapter 5: The Appearance of Impropriety
Chapter 6: The Liberal Filibuster
1978
Chapter 7: A Year of Living Dangerously
Chapter 8: The Panama Canal Fight
Chapter 9: Venturing into the Middle East
Chapter 10: An Epic Business-Labor Clash
Chapter 11: Saving New York
Chapter 12: Closing Days
1979
Chapter 13: Before the Storm
Chapter 14: Energy Battles After the Iranian Revolution
Chapter 15: Fighting the Economic Tide
Chapter 16: SALT II: Death by a Thousand Cuts
1980
Chapter 17: A Tough Political Climate
Chapter 18: America’s Last Frontier
Chapter 19: Fighting to Survive
Chapter 20: The Lame-Duck Session
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
A Note on Sources
Interviews
Notes
Bibliography
Index
“By reminding us of what the U.S. Senate was, Ira Shapiro awakens us to what this increasingly shaky pillar of American democracy still could be. In so doing, he gives us not only a riveting historical account, but also a prescription of how to restore health to our political system and true patriotism to public debate.” (Previous Edition Praise)
— Madeleine K. Albright, U.S. secretary of state, 1997-2001
“The Last Great Senate deftly captures a four year period of the Senate’s history during which it could (generally) be relied upon to act diligently and with honor. With superior insight and analysis based on his years inside the system and his love of the institution, Ira Shapiro provides an ideal lens through which to view the current political stagnation in Washington, and ultimately to give us some hope that there could be another great Senate.” (Previous Edition Praise)
— Hon. William S. Cohen, former Secretary of Defense, former senator from Maine, and CEO of The Cohen Group
“At the center of some of the most important and interesting debates in our lifetimes, Ira Shapiro worked for, and with, many members of the Senate who will be considered giants long after we are all gone. Now, in The Last Great Senate, he writes with liveliness, an insider’s insight, and affection for the senators and Senate of the late 1970s. This is great history, and a great reminder that the problems we now have with the Senate are less about its rules and more about its people and our contemporary political culture.” (Previous Edition Praise)
— Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute, and author of It's Even Worse Than It Looks
“With his gift for lively narrative and vivid character study, Ira Shapiro brings to life a forgotten, unappreciated, and surprisingly productive period of modern political history, when the Senate rose above partisanship to serve as a ‘national mediator’ for the great issues of the day. The Last Great Senate is bound to become a classic among books on Congress and American politics.” (Previous Edition Praise)
— Steven R. Weisman, former New York Times economic and diplomatic correspondent
“If today’s voters want a sure-handed explanation of how the once-consequential debate in the U.S. Senate degenerated into a low-comedy revue, Shapiro’s book offers it – powerfully.” (Previous Edition Praise)
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Ira Shapiro has produced a historically and politically artistic work of great brilliance – a masterfully researched and smoothly integrated brief that categorically proves his hypothesis. If I had but one book to recommend to newly elected senators – and their aides – this would be the one.” (Previous Edition Praise)
— Richard A. Baker, U.S. Senate Historian Emeritus
“There couldn’t be a better time to reissue Ira Shapiro’s insightful and challenging book, The Last Great Senate. If every senator and Hill staffer could read and absorb the lessons of this perceptive work — following as it does in the rich tradition of such classics as Harry McPherson’s A Political Education and Robert Caro’s The Master of the Senate — it would go a long way toward breaking the gridlock in Washington. It’s an important book, and I highly recommend it.”
— Richard Moe, chief of staff to former senator and vice president Walter F. Mondale, and author of Roosevelt’s Second Act: The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War