Delirium The Politics of Sex in America

Americans are coming to wonder what happened to hope and change. How did we get here, to this divisive paralysis, in what was supposed to be a new era of progressive change? How did we get from Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008, to the Republican sweep of Congress just two years later, to the Republicans’ unexpected post-election preoccupation with gays, sex, birth control, and abortion? From the Age of Nixon to the Age of Obama, one of the prime forces fueling America’s political wars has been the reaction against the sexual revolution and the progressive movements which emerged from it, most notably feminism and gay rights. In Delirium, Nancy Cohen charts the birth of the sexual counterrevolution: how conflicts about sex, women’s rights and women’s roles, gay civil rights, and family values, drove Americans into irreconcilable camps, polarized national politics, split and remade our political parties, and unhinged the nation. It explores a determining facet of our political debate and will become required reading as we enter the 2012 presidential election season.

Nancy L. Cohen is a historian and author of four books, including the widely acclaimed Delirium: The Politics of Sex in America and The Reconstruction of American Liberalism. Her writing on American politics has appeared in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, Rolling Stone, and other publications. She has taught politics and history at Occidental College, UCLA, and Cal State Long Beach. Cohen serves as a commissioner on the Los Angeles County Commission for Women. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.