Unfinished Business

Extract

Before Julian Zelizer called with the idea for this forum, I had marked the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Building a New American State as just one more entry on a growing list of reminders of the swift passage of time. Now, as I read the reflections of scholars who have risen to prominence during this period in political science, sociology, and history, the fullness of these years is readily apparent. Building a New American State has aged gracefully as the symbol of a larger enterprise, one that Julian Zelizer, Elizabeth Clemens, Dan Carpenter, and Brian Balogh have done much to expand, sustain, and enrich. Reflecting back on my own experience, I realize that my inclination as author to find something of critical significance on every page of the book gave way some time ago to admiration for the growing corpus of work that was engaging its themes and pushing its arguments in new directions. I count myself lucky to have had this work seized upon by a generation of scholars ready to rethink the development of American government and politics, and I am grateful to them for giving it a life of its own.