Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974-1980

Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974-1980 Review

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An authoritative history of the right turn in American national politics during the Ford-Carter years.

On the face of it, the Ford-Carter years seem completely forgettable. They were years of weak presidential leadership and national drift. Yet, as Laura Kalman shows in this absorbing narrative history, the contours of our contemporary politics took shape during these years. This was the incubation period for a powerful movement on the right that was to triumph with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. These years also marked the coming of age of the social movements of the 1960s, as their causes moved from the streets to the courts for mediation. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and the scope of privacy rights had immense social and political impact. The nation experienced an energy crisis, a sharp economic downturn, and a collision with fundamentalism in Iran that set the terms for coming crises. Kalman’s navigation of this eventful political and social terrain is expert and riveting. 8 pages of black-and-white photographs

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Telling Right from Wrong Without the Help of God

Telling Right from Wrong Without the Help of God Review

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How do you tell right from wrong?  If you are a religious person, you probably rely at least in part upon the traditions and teachings of your faith.  But what if you do not believe in God, or if you believe that no human being or institution can speak for God?  How does an atheist or an agnostic make moral choices?  In this book Wilson Huhn shows how to construct and how to apply a system of telling right from wrong that does not depend upon belief in God. This is not a book that condemns or ridicules religion. Instead, Huhn shows how atheists and agnostics can integrate a number of elements, including religious teaching, secular philosophy, cognitive psychology, and common sense as components of their moral decisionmaking. At several points Huhn critiques the sufficiency of religious teaching, and he contrasts reality-based with faith-based thinking in a number of contexts, but the principal point of this book is to demonstrate all of the different considerations that people should take into account in telling right from wrong. Writing in simple, straightforward prose, this book is both profound and clear. Part I of the book shows how to construct a moral system, and Part II shows how to apply it to a number of difficult personal and social problems. Whether you are a religious person or an atheist, this book will challenge you to answer the question, How do I tell right from wrong?

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The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History

The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History Review

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The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History Feature

Listen to a short interview with Donald Critchlow
Host: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane

Despite significant losses in the 2006 midterm elections, the Republican Right remains a powerful and defining force in American politics. Donald Critchlow, a leading historian of American conservatism, shows that time and again the GOP Right appeared defeated, only to rebound with explosive force. The ascendancy of the GOP Right was not preordained, nor was its political triumph inevitable. Rather, the history of the postwar Right was one of fierce political warfare as moderate Republicans battled right-wing Republicans for control of their party, and conservatives battled liberals for control of government. In the struggle against the dominant New Deal state, conservatives gained control of the Republican party, but their advance against liberalism and the Democratic party proved less steady. At each point the accident of historical circumstance precluded a predictable outcome.

In this provocative history of the Right in modern America, Critchlow finds a deep dilemma inherent in how conservative Republicans expressed their anti-statist ideology in an age of mass democracy and Cold War hostilities. As the Right moved forward with its political program, partisanship intensified and ideological division widened--both between the parties and across the electorate. This intensified partisanship reflects the vibrancy of a mature democracy, Critchlow argues, and a new level of political engagement despite its disquieting effect on American political debate.

The Conservative Ascendancy boldly captures the twists and turns of the GOP Right over the last sixty years, offering a story of how deeply held beliefs about the nature of the individual and the good society are translated into political power.

(20071118)

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The Conservative Ascendancy: How the Republican Right Rose to Power in Modern America

The Conservative Ascendancy: How the Republican Right Rose to Power in Modern America Review

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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.

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