Contents -- Contributors -- PART I: THE STRAINS OF GOVERNANCE -- 1 The Political Crisis of the American State: The Unsustainable State in a Time of Unraveling -- 2 Is Inequality a Threat to Democracy? -- PART II: FROM NINETEENTH-CENTURY LEGACIES TO TWENTIETH-CENTURY ORTHODOXY -- 3 The Resilient Power of the States across the Long Nineteenth Century: An Inquiry into a Pattern of American Governance -- 4 The First New Federalism and the Development of the Modern American State: Patchwork, Reconstitution, or Transition? -- 5 The Missing State in Postwar American Political Thought -- PART III: THE MODERN AMERICAN STATE -- 6 No Class War: Economic Inequality and the American Public -- 7 Economic Inequality and Political Representation -- 8 Promoting Inequality: The Politics of Higher Education Policy in an Era of Conservative Governance -- 9 Moving Feminist Activists Inside the American State: The Rise of a State-Movement Intersection and Its Effects on State Policy -- 10 From Kanye West to Barack Obama: Black Youth, the State, and Political Alienation -- PART IV: THE INHERITED STATE MOVING FORWARD -- 11 American State Building: The Theoretical Challenge -- 12 A Historian's Reflection on the Unsustainable American State -- 13 Taking Stock -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.