The Conservative Revolution: The Movement That Remade America - Softcover

Edwards, Lee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743247027 ISBN 13: 9780743247023

Publisher: Free Press, 2002

Synopsis

The triumph of the conservative movement in reshaping American politics is one of the great untold stories of the past fifty years. At the end of World War II, hardly anyone in public life would admit to being a conservative, but as Lee Edwards shows in this magisterial work, in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, a small group of committed men and women began to chip away at the liberal colossus, and their descendants would scale the ramparts of power in the 1980s and 1990s. Not even the fall of Newt Gingrich has changed the indisputable fact that the movement has truly rewritten the rules of American political life, and the republic will never be the same.

Edwards tells the stories of how conservatives built a movement from the ground up by starting magazines, by building grass-roots organizations, and by seizing control of the Republican party from those who espoused collaboration with the liberals and promised only to manage the welfare state more efficiently and not to dismantle it. But most of all he tells the story of four men, four leaders who put their personal stamp on this movement and helped to turn it into the most important political force in our country today:

* Robert Taft, "Mr. Republican," the beacon of conservative principle during the lean Roosevelt and Truman years

* Barry Goldwater, "Mr. Conservative," the flinty Westerner who inspired a new generation

* Ronald Reagan, "Mr. President," the optimist whose core beliefs were sturdy enough to subdue an evil empire

* Newt Gingrich, "Mr. Speaker," the fiery visionary who won a Congress but lost control of it

By their example and vision, these men brought intellectual and ideological stability to an often fractions conservative movement and held the high ground against the pragmatists who would compromise conservative principles for transitory political advantage.

About this title

Review

The Conservative Revolution describes how a modern intellectual movement muscled its way into American politics by examining the lives of four major right-wing figures: Ohio senator Robert Taft, who might have become president if Dwight Eisenhower had chosen not to run in 1952; Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, whose 1964 campaign energized young conservatives even as LBJ trounced him; Ronald Reagan, the man conservatives think belongs on Mount Rushmore; and Newt Gingrich, who put the GOP in charge of Congress for the first time since the 1950s and then stumbled at the hard task of running a majority party. Edwards himself is a conservative partisan, and admits that "those seeking absolute objectivity will not find it here." (But then, they won't find it in the writings of establishment liberals like Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., either.)

This is a strong survey of a vital American political movement that grew in strength over the course of half a century. Edwards's deep knowledge of his subject makes this a uniquely valuable book--perhaps even the best available on the subject--and a fine companion volume to George H. Nash's essential tome The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945. --John J. Miller

About the Author

Lee Edwards teaches politics at the Catholic University of America and has written seven previous books, including biographies of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. A senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior editor of The World & I magazine, he lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743247027
• ISBN 13: 9780743247023
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400