How did liberals get to be the way they are today? That's the question many Americans are asking as they witness the efforts of the most left-wing president in American history. At last, historians Donald T. Critchlow and W. J. Rorabaugh supply the answer. As the authors show, it is a mistake to see the Obama administration's agenda as a single man's vision. Equally flawed, they reveal, is the now-common argument that today's liberalism is simply a continuation of early-twentieth-century progressivism. Today's Left has embraced a vision for transformative change: to remake all aspects of American life. Takeoverdelineates the sharp break in the history of modern liberalism that began in the 1960s. Critchlow and Rorabaugh show how leftists in pursuit of "social justice" went from protest rallies to the halls of power by rewriting the Democratic Party's presidential nominating rules for their own benefit and using the courts to advance their radical agenda. The authors masterfully connect the dots in America's recent history, showing the close links among such seemingly unrelated causes as radical environmentalism, nationalized health care, class warfare, abortion rights, feminism, regulating the free market, assisted suicide, sex education, and energy policies to reduce consumption. Takeoveris a bold revisionist history that completely reshapes our understanding of the current political crisis.