The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy

This is the first history of the development of American Jewish political conservatism and the rise of a group of Jewish intellectuals and activists who are known as neoconservatives. It describes the growth of perhaps a dozen such figures in the 1940s and 50s, including Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer and Norman Podhoretz, to several hundred younger people such as Paul Wolfowitz, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer who have had a powerful impact on American public policy, including the run up to and aftermath of the war in Iraq.

Historian, social activist, and a prolific writer, Murray Friedman was appointed as vice chair of the US Civil Rights Commission in Washington, D.C. by Preisdent Ronald Reagan and acting chair following the death of the chairman. He will be honored in 2005 by Temple University which will announce the creation of the Murray Friedman Chair in American Jewish History at that time. In 2003, he served in a State Department delegation representing the US in Vienna at a Conference on Racism, Xenophobia, and Discrimination. Dr Friedman has written and edited numerous books including What Went Wrong? The Creation and Collapse of the Black Jewish Alliance (1995), several volumes on Philadelphia history, and The Utopian Dilemma: American Jews and Public Policy. In addition, he has written articles in Commentary, The Atlantic Monthly, The Weekly Standard, and The New Republic as well as professional journals such as American Jewish History.