Goldwater

by Lee Edwards

Book Overview

In this candid and revealing new biography, Edwards shows that there is in fact only one Goldwater, who, at age 86, with a constituency of one, delights, as he always has, in confounding friends and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0895264714
• ISBN13: 9780895264718
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing
• Length: 572 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A very pleasant surprise

I was only 10 years old when Goldwater ran for president. The vicious media attacks on him filtered down to even kids like me as I always dismissed him as a rabid far right radical. I realized how wrong I was after I started to read this book. It is a little slow at first but becomes a page turner and very hard to put down once it starts to cover Goldwater's life in the 1950's and then especially as he start to educate the country about his political philosophy. If he ran today I am certain he would be victorious. After reading this book I gained a new found admiration for the man and especially his politics.

Sympathetic, but honest, deep, and well-written.

Lee Edwards' biography of Barry Goldwater is obviously sympathetic, but the scholarship is still quite solid. Edwards' sources are strong and diverse: interviews, oral histories, books, manuscripts, government documents, personal papers, etc. Edwards uses particularly well Goldwater's two autobiographies: 1979's With No Apologies and 1988's Goldwater (with Jack Casserly). Edwards dives into these books, comparing and contrasting, and comes up with some great insights.Edwards is obviously a conservative and Goldwater sympathizer, but that doesn't detract from the book significantly. Two small areas where it does: (1) his treatment of the booing of Nelson Rockefeller at the GOP convetion is *very* confusing. He tries to say how Goldwater is not to blame, but ends up ruining the whole narrative. I actually had to consult Theodore White's "Making of the President, 1964" to figure out what really happened. (2) Some of his terms might be considered offensive (ie. Edwards has harsh words for homosexuals). In general, however, Edwards stays well away from mushy admiration for Goldwater and the other extreme, outright hatred, which you might get from some liberals. The result is a sympathetic, but honest and comprehensive account of Goldwater's life, and an effort to put his life into some overall framework.(Addendum) 1/14/2002. The recent publication of Rick Perlstein's "Before the Storm" gives Goldwater readers an absolutely unbiased history of Goldwater and the conservative movement. If Edwards is a bit too partisan for you, I suggest that one instead.

The Founder of Modern Conservatism Was a Brilliant Visionary

Lee Edwards has a wonderful writing style. I found it quite easy to get sucked into this biography and relive the events he describes. There are very few books that I can honestly say were hard to put down - this definitely is one of them. As far as the subject of discussion, Barry Goldwater, he was a brilliant man. He was well ahead of his time and clearly understood problems that only today we are beginning to appreciate. Goldwater was indeed a visionary who established the fiscal tenets of modern conservatism that eventually established the foundation for Ronald Reagan. Goldwater was a rare breed - one who spoke his mind no matter the cost - and for that was admired and adored by many. Some of those "many" are today living testimony to the inspiration of Barry Goldwater. Yet, Barry Goldwater was also an enigma in that he defied conservatives later in his political life. He always remained a stalwart supporter of limited government, less taxes, maximum freedom, and personal responsibility. But in later years, he became discontent with the Republican Party when he perceived social conservatives as trying to use government to impose their narrow interpretation of morality and goodness. He apparently despised the use of government in this fashion just as much as he despised its use to redistribute wealth and engage in social engineering. Edwards believes that Goldwater was a Libertarian who only had the opportunity to show his full colors when social conservatives tried to use the GOP to further its moral goals. Perhaps Goldwater didn't really change all that much but rather the Republican Party drifted from his premise of smaller government in all respects. Despite these later differences, Goldwater was a class act and will probably always remain the icon for modern conservatism. I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in the history of the modern conservative movement. While the book is fairly lengthy, Edwards does a fantastic job of making it interesting and captive, such that it seems to make the pages fly by.

A Fascinating Book About a Man and a Movement

Lee Edwards has written a book that is not only a biography of Goldwater but is also a history of the conservative revolution that he created beginning in the late 1950s. Edwards traces Goldwater's political rise in Arizona, his rise in the US Senate as America's leading conservative in the early 1960s his presidential campaign and loss to Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and his work afterwards to maintain and expand the conservative movement he helped create. Edwards traces the links between Goldwater's activities in the 1960s and the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s showing how Goldwater brought many leading conservatives into the ranks of the Republican party. Regardless of your political affiliation this is a great book, and if you want to understand where the Republicans of today come read this book to find out.