White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement - Softcover

In the long-awaited new book from the author of The Keys to the White House--which the Baltimore Sun called "a must book for political junkies" and which remains influential after more than fifteen years in print--Allan J. Lichtman has produced what may be the definitive history of the modern conservative movement in America.

Lichtman is both a professor of political history and a veteran journalist, and he has spent the past ten years combing through more than 150 manuscript collections--confidential memos, internal strategy papers, secret correspondence, and much more--to capture the entire tapestry and trajectory of the conservative movement. He brings to life a gallery of dynamic right-wing personalities, from luminaries such as Strom Thurmond, Billy Graham, Phyllis Schlafly, William F. Buckley Jr., and Bill Kristol to indispensable inside operators like financiers Frank Gannett, J. Howard Pew, and Richard Mellon Scaife. He explodes the conventional wisdom that modern conservative politics began with Goldwater and instead traces the roots of today's movement to the 1920s. He shows how modern conservatism was born out of post-World War I fears that secular, pluralistic, and cosmopolitan forces threatened America's national identity. And he lays bare the tactics that conservatives have used for generations to put their slant on policy and culture; to choke the growth of the liberal state from the New Deal era to the Great Society to the Clinton years; and to build the most powerful network of media, fundraising, and intellectual organizations in the history of representative government.

Ultimately, Lichtman concludes that conservative ideology is grounded not in specific issues such as limited government, low taxes, or free markets--most of which are disposable ideas that the right has been quick to embrace or reject to suit the needs of the moment--but rather in a dual vision of America as a white Protestant nation, and a country whose greatness is driven by private enterprise. He argues that President George W. Bush is the heir to both the strengths and weaknesses of this tradition, and he explores whether Bush is presiding over the demise of the modern conservative movement.

Lively, comprehensive, and built on unprecedented primary research, White Protestant Nation tells the whole story of the modern conservative movement and its place within the big picture of American history. This book is entertaining, provocative, enlightening, and essential reading for anyone who cares about American politics and its history.

"Allan Lichtman has undertaken an important, insightful and timely study, and his well-written report in White Protestant Nation provides true insight into modern conservatism." --John W. Dean, former Nixon White House counsel and author of Pure Goldwater

"Penetrating, detailed, and astute, Allan Lichtman's White Protestant Nation reveals the deep motivations behind modern American conservatism--and in the process shows us why that movement faces political decline despite its power and wealth." --Joe Conason, author of It Can Happen Here

"White Protestant Nation is an absolutely essential chronicle of the rise of the conservative movement. We have read this story in parts, but now Lichtman has brought it together in a compelling and illuminating narrative." --Max Blumenthal, the Nation Institute

"Allan Lichtman's new book breaks important ground. Based on an extraordinary range of archival sources, he reminds us that conservatism is not the recent product of Ronald Reagan or Karl Rove, but is deeply embedded in more than a century of American politics and culture." --Robert Griffith, author of The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate

"White Protestant Nation is must-reading for every conservative and liberal in America. Lichtman's meticulous research and acute analysis reveals the hidden history of how America's conservative movement rose to power in the twentieth century and why it faces such serious challenges today." --Richard Bond, former chairman of the Republican National Committee

"Impressive . . . Comprehensive . . . With an extraordinary breadth of vision and an impressive grasp of the forces that shape political history, the author examines the many forces underlying modern conservatism and lays out some of the challenges it faces. . . . An important examination of the political, moral, and economic forces that continue to shape the movement." --Kirkus Reviews

"Lichtman profiles the behind-the-scenes operators who have crafted the marching orders for right-wing Americans in the last half-century. . . . As a structural blueprint of conservative political power . . . this book is without peer, giving readers a wonderful historical survey of the last eighty years of conservative politics." --Publishers Weekly