Urban riots, campus rebels, mayhem, and rapidly rising rates of violent crime — much of what is going on today looks like deja vu all over again for those of us old enough to remember the late 1960s and early 1970s. The ’60s, as these wearying years are often labeled, produced many dismaying policy mistakes, many of which are still with us.

For an illuminating account of those blunders, and a glimpse of emerging successes that were little noticed at the time, you might want to consult Amity Shlaes’s new book Great Society: A New History, released late last fall just before the current mayhem was set in motion. It’s a fitting companion to The Forgotten Man, her 2007 account of the New Deal. In both books, she challenges the conventional wisdom of the liberal narrative by focusing on crucial actors and pivotal developments that liberal historians have ignored.