The Right Nation FROM THE PUBLISHER
In a relatively short span of time, because of the conservative movement's power, America has veered sharply to the right, so that now, compared with Europe or even American under Richard Nixon, we are a distinctly more conservative nation in many crucial respects no matter which party occupies the Oval Office. In The Right Nation, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge examine the movement that accounts for how and why conservative positions have been so successfully advanced over such a broad front.
SYNOPSIS
Echoing de Tocqueville's comment on the French Revolution, the authors (both of the Economist) believe that the conservative revolution that has taken over the United States over the past 50 years was "So inevitable and yet so completely unforeseen." They offer a portrait of the American right and an argument as to why the U.S. is more conservative in nature than comparable rich industrial democracies (and why it's going to stay that way). Central to their argument is the organizing power of the conservative movement and the movement is the primary character of their narrative. They describe the activities of the think tanks, the organizers, the spokespeople, and the rank and file activists and root their success in American exceptionalism. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Ted Widmer - The New York Times
Mr. Micklethwait and Mr. Wooldridge helpfully distinguish between the different kinds of conservatism that are joined through the Republican Party, but are not really the same as each other or the party. While they write from a historical perspective, they are reporters as well, and the story is enlivened by glimpses into places most Americans do not see: gated communities, conservative retirement homes, gun lobby office parks and educational institutions like Patrick Henry College, which teaches "Christ and liberty" to students from home-schooling backgrounds. The writing is consistently crisp and intelligent, the conclusions balanced.
Publishers Weekly
In the introduction to this engaging study of American conservatism, Micklethwait and Wooldridge of the Economist disclaim any allegiance to America's "two great political tribes." It is this Tocquevillian quality of informed impartiality that makes their book so effective at conveying how profoundly the right has reshaped the American political landscape over the past half century. The authors trace the history of the conservative movement from the McCarthy era, when "conservatism was a fringe idea," to the second Bush administration and the "victory of the right." They dissect the new "conservative establishment," which combines the intellectual force of think tanks, business interest groups and sympathetic media outlets with the "brawn" of "footsoldiers" from the populist social conservative wing of the GOP, and argue that continuing Republican hegemony is likely. Democratic optimists who point to favorable demographic trends are exaggerating the liberalism of Latino and professional voters, say the authors, while other factors, such as suburbanization and terrorism, will tend to promote Republican values. Still, the right should be worried about its own "capacity for extremism and intolerance" and about holding together its unlikely alliance of religious moralists and small-government activists. Even so, say the authors, conservative ideas are now so pervasive in American society that even a Kerry administration could do little to divert the country's long-term rightward drift. This epochal political transformation is rarely analyzed with the degree of dispassionate clarity that Micklethwait and Wooldridge bring to their penetrating analysis. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Foreign Affairs
Micklethwait and Wooldridge, respectively the U.S. editor and Washington correspondent of The Economist, have written an original, probing, and engaging examination of conservative politics in America. Their book offers more than a survey of the rise of Ronald Reagan or the policies of George W. Bush-although it contains much of that. Instead, The Right Nation is part social analysis, part history of ideas that examines how conservative ideology became such a defining feature of American life. Like Edmund Burke before them, the authors argue that America has always been a "fundamentally conservative nation" whose revolution, unlike the one in France, was about the limitations on government power. But since World War II, conservative ideology has become a reactive and, more recently, preemptive force that has shunted liberalism to the sidelines. Indeed, the authors argue that today's liberalism, in the hands of Bill Clinton or John Kerry, is merely a pale, centrist echo of conservative thought.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge never show their own political cards. But they clearly take conservative ideas seriously, and they examine both the popular appeal and the intellectual weaknesses of those ideas, from Russell Kirk's to Paul Wolfowitz's. Conservatism in the United States, they conclude, is another example of American exceptionalism. With its think tanks, intellectual quarterlies, mega-churches, policy entrepreneurs, and factional rivalry, the American conservative movement has no parallel in the conservative parties of Europe. On this point, it is hard to miss the wistful tone of these trenchant British observers.
Library Journal
Journalists for the Economist, British authors Micklethwait (U.S. editor) and Woolridge (Washington correspondent) join the decades-old debate about whether the United States is primarily a conservative or a liberal nation. Their analysis shows that American conservatives differ from their European counterparts. While both are nationalistic and suspicious of state power, preferring liberty over equality, American conservatives are more liberal in regard to hierarchy, pessimism, and elitism. They see themselves as rugged individualists who believe in progress and like to portray themselves as populists. This book serves as the counterpoint to John Judis and Ruy Teixeiria's The Emerging Democratic Majority, which argued that current demographics favor the Democratic Party, since the educated are the most tolerant segment of society and tend to vote. In contrast, The Right Nation sketches a cradle-to-grave conservatism in which children are home-schooled, reared in gated communities, and sent to conservative churches and colleges, then network with conservative organizations while reading and listening to conservative media. The authors' viewpoint and writing reflect the magazine for which they work: both are highly articulate, intelligent, insightful, and sometimes just plain wrong. Still, political junkies on both sides of the political spectrum will enjoy and gain from the analysis. Highly recommended.-William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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