Melinda Cooper, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (Zone Books/MIT Press, 2017).

Situated squarely within the history of neoliberalism in the US in the latter half of the 20th century, this book is excellent at couple of things. First it presents an insightful intellectual history of neoliberalism’s later years, covering how figures like Richard Posner and Gary Becker responded to social crises of the 1990s. Second, it presents detailed analyses of policy from the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 90s, to the collapse of the family wage, to policies on inflation and interest rates, while connecting these analyses to lived experiences and struggles of women, people of color and LGBTQ people. Last, the book also brings some excellent theoretical discussion into light. Pushing against socially conservative critiques of neoliberalism, Cooper argues convincingly that far from bringing an end to the nuclear family, post-Fordism reinvested in the family and its attending social conservative values. Cooper demonstrates in detail, how neoliberal policies relied on a reinvention of Victorian “Poor Laws”, how it promoted homonormativity to offload the health costs of dealing with the AIDS epidemic onto “families”, how it mediated the administration of social welfare through the apparatus of the family. In doing so, she captures in brilliant detail, the “counter-revolutionary” character of neoliberalism, that often worked to counteract the struggles of women, people of color and LGBTQ people. 

Essential reading for anyone who studies the history of neoliberal thought and its relation to neo-conservatism.   - BK