In 1963, Richard Hofstadter published his landmark book Anti-intellectualism in American Life. Today, Matt Lewis argues that America's inclination toward simplicity and stupidity is stronger than ever, with its greatest victim the Republican Party. Lewis criticizes candidates with a ''no experience required'' mentality and Tea Party patriots who possess bluster but few core beliefs. He traces the conservative movement's history and highlights visionary thinkers who understood nuance and deep ideology and changed the course of the nation. Lewis' urgent message for fellow conservatives is to embrace wisdom, humility, qualifications, and inclusion-- or face extinction.

Product Description: From a leading voice among young conservatives comes an impassioned argument that, to stay relevant, the Republican Party must look beyond short-term electoral gains and recommit to historic conservative values.In 1963, Richard Hofstadter published his landmark book Anti-intellectualism in American Life...read more

Product Description: “A wonderful book.” —Fred Barnes“Reserves a special place for Tucker in the pantheon of political authors.” —National Review Online“Many readers resent the narrowness standard histories offer. They will welcome Conservative Heroes, which so thoughtfully draws out the full picture...read more

Product Description: Dr. Richard Bishirjian's Conservative Rebellion examines the American conservative movement in light of phases of American history in which the life of the American nation took shape from forces and conditions of the American soul...read more

Product Description: The statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797) is a touchstone for modern conservatism in the United States, and his name and his writings have been invoked by figures ranging from the arch Federalist George Cabot to the twentieth-century political philosopher Leo Strauss...read more

The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism tells the gripping story of perhaps the most significant political force of our time through the lives and careers of six leading figures at the heart of the movement. David Farber traces the history of modern conservatism from its revolt against New Deal liberalism, to its breathtaking resurgence under Ronald Reagan, to its spectacular defeat with the election of Barack Obama. Farber paints vivid portraits of Robert Taft, William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. He shows how these outspoken, charismatic, and frequently controversial conservative leaders were united by a shared insistence on the primacy of social order, national security, and economic liberty. Farber demonstrates how they built a versatile movement capable of gaining and holding power, from Taft's opposition to the New Deal to Buckley's founding of the National Review as the intellectual standard-bearer of modern conservatism; from Goldwater's crusade against leftist politics and his failed 1964 bid for the presidency to Schlafly's rejection of feminism in favor of traditional gender roles and family values; and from Reagan's city upon a hill to conservatism's downfall with Bush's ambitious presidency. The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism provides rare insight into how conservatives captured the American political imagination by claiming moral superiority, downplaying economic inequality, relishing bellicosity, and embracing nationalism. This concise and accessible history reveals how these conservative leaders discovered a winning formula that enabled them to forge a powerful and formidable political majority.

Product Description: This collective work examines the different conservatisms displayed in the UK and US, particularly in the areas of the meaning of rights, their foreign policy mission, the role of religious activism within their respective party politics, and the impact of the current economic crisis on free-market economic orthodoxy...read more

Product Description: Faith Based explores how the Religious Right has supported neoliberalism in the United States, bringing a particular focus to welfare―an arena where conservative Protestant politics and neoliberal economic ideas come together most clearly...read more

Product Description: Because no movement resembling American social conservatism exists in any other affluent democracy, it is widely seen as a “retro” phenomenon soon to disappear, a sure casualty of globalization.Author and political activist Jeffrey Bell argues that social conservatism is uniquely American precisely because it’s an outgrowth of American exceptionalism...read more

Product Description: Taking the Fight to the Enemy: Neoconservatism and the Age of Ideology looks at six "neoconservative" intellectuals and the influences on their thinking about the defects of communism, fascism, progressivism, the dominant American culture, and even capitalism itself...read more

The role the South has played in contemporary conservatism is perhaps the most consequential political phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century. The region’s transition from Democratic stronghold to Republican base has frequently been viewed as a recent occurrence, one that largely stems from a 1960s-era backlash against left-leaning social movements. But as Joseph Lowndes argues in this book, this rightward shift was not necessarily a natural response by alienated whites, but rather the result of the long-term development of an alliance between Southern segregationists and Northern conservatives, two groups who initially shared little beyond opposition to specific New Deal imperatives. Lowndes focuses his narrative on the formative period between the end of the Second World War and the Nixon years. By looking at the 1948 Dixiecrat Revolt, the presidential campaigns of George Wallace, and popular representations of the region, he shows the many ways in which the South changed during these decades. Lowndes traces how a new alliance began to emerge by further examining the pages of the National Review and Republican party-building efforts in the South during the campaigns of Eisenhower, Goldwater, and Nixon. The unique characteristics of American conservatism were forged in the crucible of race relations in the South, he argues, and his analysis of party-building efforts, national institutions, and the innovations of particular political actors provides a keen look into the ideology of modern conservatism and the Republican Party.

Product Description: From its origins in 1930s Marxism to its unprecedented influence on George W. Bush's administration, neoconservatism has become one of the most powerful, reviled, and misunderstood intellectual movements in American history. But who are the neocons, and how did this obscure group of government officials, pundits, and think-tank denizens rise to revolutionize American foreign policy?Political journalist Jacob Heilbrunn uses his intimate knowledge of the movement and its members to write the definitive history of the neoconservatives...read more

Product Description: In Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace, Mary Brennan examines conservative women's anti-communist activism in the years immediately after World War II.Brennan details the actions and experiences of prominent anti-communists Jean Kerr McCarthy, Margaret Chase Smith, Freda Utley, Doloris Thauwald Bridges, Elizabeth Churchill Brown, and Phyllis Stewart Schlafly...read more

A critical study of the growth of political conservatism among African Americans today, written by a liberal black Democrat, traces the history of the movement, from the pre-Civil War era to the present day, examining its influence on various black social and political movements and addressing the question of if conservatives are effectively protecting the interests of blacks.