Trump's Triumph and Early Days: a Historian's Perspective

Dr Elizabeth Tandy Shermer (Loyola University Chicago) Was Donald Trump’s win over Democrat Hillary Clinton really that surprising or unprecedented? It may seem so, given the gaffs, one-liners, and memorable moments, but her loss and his victory were really decades in the making.

This talk, given by an expert on the history of US conservatism and political life, will trace this longer history and provide a revealing set of insights into the rise of Donald Trump.

Elizabeth Tandy Shermer is an assistant professor of history at Loyola University Chicago where she teaches courses in twentieth-century United States history, with an emphasis on in the fields of capitalism, business, labor, political ideas and ideologies, regional development, and urbanization. Shermer has written extensively on twentieth-century U.S. political and urban history. She is the author of Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), editor of Barry Goldwater and the Remaking of the American Political Landscape (University of Arizona Press, 2013), and co-editor, with Nelson Lichtenstein, of The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology, and Imagination (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). She was previously the assistant director at the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2005 to 2009 and currently serves as co-editor of the book series ‘American Business, Politics, and Society’ at the University of Pennsylvania Press. More on Dr Shermer here.