Neal Gabler is the author of six previous books, including four biographies: Catching the Wind, An Empire of Their Own, Winchell, and Walt Disney. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a Shorenstein fellowship, and a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy scholarship, and was the chief nonfiction judge of the National Book Awards. Against the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Rise of Conservatism, 1976 – 2009 (Crown) completes Gabler’s magisterial biography of Ted Kennedy, but it also unfolds the epic, tragic story of the fall of liberalism and the destruction of political morality in America. It traces Kennedy’s life from the wilderness of the Reagan years through the compromises of the Clinton era, from his rage against the craven cruelty of George W. Bush to his hope that Obama would deliver universal health care. Almost by default, he became the most powerful voice legislating for the neglected or punished: the poor, the working class, and African Americans. But time and again, Kennedy’s moral failures were used to weaken his voice and undercut his claims to political morality. Against the Wind sheds new light on a revered figure of American politics and on the country’s current existential crisis.
