Conscience of a Conservative: A Classic Statement of American Conservatism

Conscience of a Conservative is one of the defining political books of modern American conservatism, a compact and forceful statement of limited government, constitutional restraint, individual liberty, and anti-communist foreign policy.

Published in 1960 under the name of Barry Goldwater, the book helped turn the Arizona senator into a national political figure and gave a clear ideological shape to the conservative movement that would reshape Republican politics in the decades that followed. Its chapters address federal power, states’ rights, civil rights, agriculture, labor unions, taxation, education, social welfare, and the Cold War, setting out a political philosophy rooted in constitutional limits, personal responsibility, free enterprise, and resistance to centralized authority.

Conscience of a Conservative became a foundational text for postwar American conservatism and helped prepare the way for Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign and, later, the Reagan Revolution. Direct, unapologetic, and sharply argued, it remains an essential document for readers interested in conservative political thought, American political history, Republican Party history, libertarian conservatism, twentieth-century ideology, and the long debate over the proper size and power of the federal government.

About the Author

Barry Goldwater was an American senator from Arizona, the Republican nominee for president in 1964, and one of the central figures in the development of modern American conservatism. Known to supporters as “Mr. Conservative,” Goldwater became nationally identified with limited government, anti-communism, states’ rights, free enterprise, individual liberty, and constitutional restraint. His political career helped shift the Republican Party toward a more explicitly conservative ideological identity, influencing later conservative leaders and movements throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

Although Conscience of a Conservative was published under Goldwater’s name and became inseparable from his public identity, the book was largely ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr., a conservative writer and intellectual associated with William F. Buckley Jr. and the postwar conservative movement. The book’s impact, however, belonged squarely to Goldwater’s political moment: it distilled his message for a national audience and became one of the most widely read statements of American conservative political philosophy.