In 1981, a Right Wing Republican at long last resided in the White House, presiding over what may prove to be the most fundamental restructuring of American political life since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fortunately, The Republican Right since 1945 now provides us with the necessary historical understanding of conservative Republicans. David Reinhard's dispassionate yet lively book recounts the Republican Right's political struggles from the death of FDR in 1945 to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Younger readers will discover that Right Wing Republicans are older than Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater and that some conservative Republicans once feared the overextension of American power abroad and the rise of the "garrison state" at home. Those old enough to remember when the Republican Right was called the "Old Guard" will rediscover the events and personalities of those earlier years, thanks to Reinhard's use of more than thirty five manuscript collections and the most recent historical writing. Not content to let this history end where traditional manuscript sources run thin, Reinhard has brought the story of the Republican Right Wing forward to President Ronald Reagan's inauguration, placing Right Wing Republican reaction to the Johnson and the Nixon-Ford years within the context of the earlier period and chronicling the electoral triumph of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Right. Students of the past and observers of the present will appreciate Reinhard's treatment of the always-troubled Nixon-Republican Right association; challenger Ronald Reagan's battle against President Gerald Ford in 1976; the decline of GOP moderation; and the rise of the New Right-Moral Majority forces and their relationship to the now ascendant Republican Right. Reinhard illuminates the conservative Republican past and thereby makes the current political scene more understandable. Thoroughly researched and brilliantly written, The Republican Right since 1945 will fascinate scholars and general readers alike.

In 1981, a Right Wing Republican at long last resided in the White House, presiding over what may prove to be the most fundamental restructuring of American political life since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fortunately, The Republican Right since 1945 now provides us with the necessary historical understanding of conservative Republicans. David Reinhard's dispassionate yet lively book recounts the Republican Right's political struggles from the death of FDR in 1945 to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Younger readers will discover that Right Wing Republicans are older than Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater and that some conservative Republicans once feared the overextension of American power abroad and the rise of the "garrison state" at home. Those old enough to remember when the Republican Right was called the "Old Guard" will rediscover the events and personalities of those earlier years, thanks to Reinhard's use of more than thirty five manuscript collections and the most recent historical writing. Not content to let this history end where traditional manuscript sources run thin, Reinhard has brought the story of the Republican Right Wing forward to President Ronald Reagan's inauguration, placing Right Wing Republican reaction to the Johnson and the Nixon-Ford years within the context of the earlier period and chronicling the electoral triumph of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Right. Students of the past and observers of the present will appreciate Reinhard's treatment of the always-troubled Nixon-Republican Right association; challenger Ronald Reagan's battle against President Gerald Ford in 1976; the decline of GOP moderation; and the rise of the New Right-Moral Majority forces and their relationship to the now ascendant Republican Right. Reinhard illuminates the conservative Republican past and thereby makes the current political scene more understandable. Thoroughly researched and brilliantly written, The Republican Right since 1945 will fascinate scholars and general readers alike.

From the middle of the twentieth century, think tanks have played an indelible role in the rise of American conservatism. Positioning themselves against the alleged liberal bias of the media, academia, and the federal bureaucracy, conservative think tanks gained the attention of politicians and the public alike and were instrumental in promulgating conservative ideas. Yet, in spite of the formative influence these institutions have had on the media and public opinion, little has been written about their history. Here, Jason Stahl offers the first sustained investigation of the rise and historical development of the conservative think tank as a source of political and cultural power in the United States. What we now know as conservative think tanks--research and public-relations institutions populated by conservative intellectuals--emerged in the postwar period as places for theorizing and "selling" public policies and ideologies to both lawmakers and the public at large. Stahl traces the progression of think tanks from their outsider status against a backdrop of New Deal and Great Society liberalism to their current prominence as a counterweight to progressive political institutions and thought. By examining the rise of the conservative think tank, Stahl makes invaluable contributions to our historical understanding of conservatism, public-policy formation, and capitalism.

Right Face tells the compelling story of how the American conservative movement in the two decades following World War II managed to move from obscurity to the center stage of national politics. When Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 defeated the conservative champion Robert Taft and won the Republican presidential nomination, many on the American right felt that they had become homeless within the established party-system. The brand of liberalism which permeated the nation's intellectual life had also become bipartisan political doctrine. The feeling of cultural and political ostracism triggered a quest for an independent conservative network of organizations, with the hope of either "taking back" the Republican Party or creating a viable alternative. The first part of Right Face recounts the often bitter struggle to define the meaning of conservatism in modern America. Part two concerns the search for influential national outlets for conservative opinion, whereas part three focuses on the movement's actual plunge into electoral politics - not least on its well-planned takeover of the Republican Party machinery in 1964 and the resulting presidential nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater. An epilogue attempts to trace main currents in the evolution of American conservatism since the 1960s, as well as to assess the extent to which American conservatives have managed to create the "Counter-Establishment" they set out to create more than half a century ago. In a sense the conservatives actually set out on two different quests: One was for intellectual respectability. The other was for political power. As this study reveals, the two goals were not always compatible. Based on extensive archival sources, Right Face provides an incisive analysis of the conservative movement and the forces that shaped it. With its blending of intellectual and organizational developments, it adds an important chapter to the history of American political culture in the 20th century.

Diamond looks at conservative politics in the United States from World War II to the post-Reagan years.

Hailed as "perhaps the best scholarly overview of the conservative movement in print" (American Conservative), Donald Critchlow's The Conservative Ascendancy has depicted, as no other book has, the wild ride of the Republican Right. Newly updated and available for the first time in paperback, it continues to offer the best account of the conservative struggle to reverse the momentum of the New Deal. In tracing the conservative revival, Critchlow chronicles how conservative beliefs were translated into political power. He shows how conservatives, from think tank theorists to grassroots mobilizers, gained control of the Republican party by defeating its liberal eastern wing only to find that the welfare state was not so easily dismantled. Looking back at the 1964 Goldwater debacle and the scandal-plagued Nixon years, he then revisits the triumph of the Reagan presidency and describes how George W. Bush injected into American politics a level of partisanship not seen since the nineteenth century. Critchlow recounts the conflict between purity of principle and political practice for conservatives, and the dilemma of maintaining an anti-statist ideology in an era of mass democracy and Cold War hostilities. Throughout he delineates the intellectual foundations of the Right's positions--including the ongoing schism that separates social conservatives from libertarians--while plumbing America's increasing ideological divide. This updated edition not only features a new preface and conclusion but also boasts an entirely new chapter covering the 2008 presidential election, the 2008 financial meltdown, the first two years of Obama's presidency, the emergence of the Tea Party, the 2010 midterms, and ongoing economic problems. Here Critchlow foresees a new epoch in which the old conservative-progressive divide is unable to address the problems caused by national debt, entitlement deficits, and a new global economy-a new reality sure to transform both parties. As conservatives continue to wave the banners of limited government, individual responsibility, and free enterprise, Critchlow's book provides a clear guide to the country's most dynamic political movement and is essential reading for students and citizens alike as the political center continues to tack to the right.

Debating the American Conservative Movement chronicles one of the most dramatic stories of modern American political history. The authors describe how a small band of conservatives in the immediate aftermath of World War II launched a revolution that shifted American politics to the right, challenged the New Deal order, transformed the Republican Party into a voice of conservatism, and set the terms of debate in American politics as the country entered the new millennium. Historians Donald T. Critchlow and Nancy MacLean frame two opposing perspectives of how the history of conservatism in modern America can be understood, but readers are encouraged to reach their own conclusions through reading engaging primary documents. Book jacket.

Stressing the relevance of The Transformation of Southern Politics as a background for understanding the South into the next century, Jack Bass and Walter De Vries write that the "themes of change in southern politics still involve the rise of the Republican Party, black political development and the Democratic response to it--and the interaction of these forces with social and economic issues." The Transformation of Southern Politics examines the post-World War II political evolution of the eleven southern states and traces the effects of such influences as Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, urban migration, the growth of the Republican Party, and the rise of African Americans in the political landscape. Relying on the methodology that V. O. Key used in his 1949 classic Southern Politics in State and Nation, the work draws on interviews with more than 360 politicians, scholars, journalists, and labor leaders, and includes a wealth of data on voting trends, political perceptions, and population flow to present a comprehensive portrait of the region up to the 1976 presidential election. In the preface to the Brown Thrasher edition, Bass and De Vries offer an overview of the region's current political climate, including an analysis of the 1994 mid-term elections. They also provide excerpts from their interview with Bill Clinton during his first campaign for political office.

A provocative, sometimes chilling expose of domestic fascist networks, which include Nazi collaborators within the Republican Party.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Democracy Awakening, “the most comprehensive account of the GOP and its competing impulses” (Los Angeles Times) When Abraham Lincoln helped create the Republican Party on the eve of the Civil War, his goal was to promote economic opportunity for all Americans, not just the slaveholding Southern planters who steered national politics. Yet, despite the egalitarian dream at the heart of its founding, the Republican Party quickly became mired in a fundamental identity crisis. Would it be the party of democratic ideals? Or would it be the party of moneyed interests? In the century and a half since, Republicans have vacillated between these two poles, with dire economic, political, and moral repercussions for the entire nation. In To Make Men Free, celebrated historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Grand Old Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession, revealing the insidious cycle of boom and bust that has characterized the Party since its inception. While in office, progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln's vision of economic freedom and expanded the government, attacking the concentration of wealth and nurturing upward mobility. But they and others like them have been continually thwarted by powerful business interests in the Party. Their opponents appealed to Americans' latent racism and xenophobia to regain political power, linking taxation and regulation to redistribution and socialism. The results of the Party's wholesale embrace of big business are all too familiar: financial collapses like the Panic of 1893, the Great Depression in 1929, and the Great Recession in 2008. With each passing decade, with each missed opportunity and political misstep, the schism within the Republican Party has grown wider, pulling the GOP ever further from its founding principles. Expansive and authoritative, To Make Men Free is a sweeping history of the Party that was once America's greatest political hope -- and, time and time again, has proved its greatest disappointment.