THE WRECKING CREW:
How Conservatives Rule
By Thomas Frank
Metropolitan Books
Publication Date: August 2008
Contact: Angela Hayes, 212-446-5104

In his previous book, What's the Matter With Kansas?, Thomas Frank explained why working America votes for politicians who reserve their favors for the rich. Now, in THE WRECKING CREW, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt Washington that politicians have given us. Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war.

It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state. Stamped with Frank's audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, THE WRECKING CREW is his most revelatory work yet--and his most important.

Author tour: Washington, DC; New York City; Boston; Seattle; Portland; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Denver/Boulder; Minneapolis; Chicago/Milwaukee; St. Louis; Kansas City; Wichita, KS; Austin, TX; Cincinnati; Atlanta; Raleigh; and Philadelphia