Professor Paul Sabin Department of History at Yale University

193 Whitney Avenue,New Haven CT 06511

16 November, 2021

Description

Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism DUE TO COVID A Mask mandate is issued for all staff and guests whenever not seated at your table eating. No more than 6 guests per table will be permitted at a 60” round.Paul Sabin is the author of Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism (W.W. Norton, 2021), which examines the insurgent attack on traditional liberalism mounted by environmentalists, social critics, and consumer advocates in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing energy from civil rights protests and opposition to the Vietnam War, the new citizens’ movement disrupted government plans for urban highways and new hydroelectric dams and got Congress to pass tough legislation to protect clean air and clean water. Advocates like Ralph Nader helped lead a revolution in safety that forced companies and governments to better protect consumers and workers from dangerous products and hazardous work conditions. And yet, in the process, citizen advocates also helped to undermine big government liberalism— the powerful alliance between government, business, and labor that dominated the United States politically in the decades following the New Deal and World War II. Public interest advocates showed how government power often was used to advance private interests rather than restrain them. In the process of attacking government for its failings and its dangers, however, the public interest movement struggled to replace traditional liberalism with a new approach to governing and instead helped clear the way for their antagonists: Reagan-era conservatives seeking to slash government regulations. Sabin teaches United States environmental history and energy politics at Yale University, where he also directs the Yale Environmental Humanities Program. His previous book, The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble Over Earth’s Future (2013), explored the clash between environmentalists and their critics in contentious debates over population growth and resource scarcity. Sabin received his doctorate in American History from the University of California, Berkeley, and spent a postdoctoral year as Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in business history at the Harvard Business School. He also served for nine years as the founding executive director of the non-profit Environmental Leadership Program, which has trained and supported a collaborative network of more than 1,300 talented public leaders from higher education, government, businesses, and non-profit organizations. Yale's Hometown Community The Yale Club of New Haven welcomes alumni, current students, faculty, staff, and friends to become members.