Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement

by Justin Raimondo

Many conservatives want to know: Where did the Right go wrong?

Justin Raimondo provides the answer in this captivating narrative. Raimondo shows how the noninterventionist Old Right - which included half-forgotten giants and prophets such as Senator Robert A. Taft, Garet Garrett, and Colonel Robert McCormick - was supplanted in influence by a Right that made its peace with bigger government at home and "perpetual war for perpetual peace"...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933859601
• ISBN13: 9781933859606
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Length: 375 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Needed now more than ever!

This book, written and originally published in the early-1990s, has, if anything, become more relevant in the decade-and-a-half since its publication. Justin Raimondo's RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN RIGHT is an examination of the so-called "Old Right." The Old Right was anti-interventionist, pro-free market, and overall, anti-statist (think "Ron Paul," who's about the only well-known present-day Old Rightist in national politics.) It first arose as a coherent (though unorganized) movement in opposition to FDR's New Deal, and it also opposed American entry into the Second World War. Such writers as Garet Garett, John T. Flynn, Frank Chodorov, H.L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, as well as newspaper publisher Col. Robert McCormick are the heroes of this group. In today's terminology, these men would be considered "libertarians" and/or "paleoconservatives." Raimondo also contrasts the Old Right with the now-notorious "neoconservatives," who first started to penetrate the American Right just before the Second World War, and who found a permanent, influential place in American conservatism during the early stages of the Cold War. The "neocons" were primarily ex-Trotskyites who never left the essentials of their Marxist ideas - particularly their vehemently statist (in some cases virtually totalitarian) leanings, their militarism, their elitism, and their utter worship of raw power. According to Raimondo, during the Cold War the American Right was largely taken over by a clique - amongst whom the neocons were influential - who (whether tacitly or actively) supported Big Government and a highly interventionist foreign policy. However, once the Cold War ended, the Right was presented with an opportunity to return to its roots. Raimondo, writing around fifteen years ago, seems optimistic that it would, and towards the end of the book, he points to Pat Buchanan as a rising paleoconservative star in the early `90s. Raimondo writes well and tells a story that needs telling. Most modern-day Americans either know nothing of the Old Right, or they know of it only in the form of distortions, dismissive caricatures, and untrue smears. I read a first edition of the book, so I'd be interested to read the material that has been added to the newer additions. However, it would seem to me that, with the political lynching of Pat Buchanan, the so-called "War on Terror" and wholesale imperialism in the Middle East, the Republican Party's virtual blacklisting of Ron Paul, and the McCain nomination in '08, the American Right has unfortunately NOT returned to its Old Right roots, as Raimondo somewhat optimistically hoped in the early-`90s. Instead, the American Right appears to have been taken over by a version of neoconservatism whose main political trademarks are jingoism, occasional halfhearted references to shrinking government (without the intent of ever seriously following through on them), and shamelessly pandering to evangelicals. If you think of yourself as a

A look back that's essential for looking ahead

I've wanted to read this book for a long time, and was very happy when ISI announced its republication earlier this year. Certainly worth the wait, it ended up being more than I expected. While the jury is still out, I'm inclined to agree with Scott P. Richert in the first of two "critical essays" added to this new edition that "Reclaiming..." is "well on its way to being considered a classic of American political conservatism, on the order of those works of Albert Jay Nock and John T. Flynn and Garet Garrett which are discussed herein" (p. 299). Other authors before and since 1992, when "Reclaiming..." was first published, have told the history of the Old Right and made the case that American conservatism did not, as I put it in another review, spring fully-formed from the brows of Buckley and Burnham at a "National Review" editorial conference in 1952. Few of those other authors, though, can match the depth of Justin Raimondo's research, the apparent range of his reading, or his skill in tying it all together. At least until we get a chance to see Bruce Ramsey's brand-new "Unsanctioned Voice - Garet Garrett, Journalist of the Old Right," "Reclaiming..." may be the definitive taxonomy of his place in the history of American conservatism. Raimondo's salvaging of this all-but-forgotten writer -- and his fascinating and important proof of the influence of Garrett on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" -- are alone worth the price of the book. "Reclaiming..." was first published in 1993, and wasn't updated for this new edition (except for the addition of those "critical essays"). It therefore doesn't address George W. Bush and his form of "conservatism," the war on terror and the expansion of empire both at home and abroad, or, most recently, the Ron Paul campaign and the thousands of newly-minted Revolutionaries it raised. Though that makes it obvious this book is 15 years old, you could almost claim Raimondo saw it coming. His sections on the neocons and their imperial project more than stands the test of time. Where this book ended up surprising me (though having read some of the author's other works and having met him a few times many years ago, it probably shouldn't have), though, is that it's not only a well-researched and documented history, but also a spirited call for the intellectual heirs of the Old Right to, well, reclaim the American Right. His energetic defense of Pat Buchanan, his takedown of the myth of Rand as philosopher-sui-generis, and his feisty rejection of American Empire all deserve close reading. And as someone admittedly prone to Nockian pessimism, I found his invocation of Rothbard's driving optimism a valuable tonic. One of Raimondo's major documentary sources, in fact, was Rothbard's then-unpublished manuscript for "The Betrayal of the American Right." Now that it too is in print, these two titles together make for great, indeed I'd argue essential, reading for today's conservatives, both newly-minted members of the Ron Pa

Recovering the Old Right

In this excellent book, Justin Raimondo breathes new life into the forgotten icons of the Old Right. These figures include -- among others -- Albert Jay Nock (who was in fact regarded as a "leftist" for part of his career), H.L. Mencken, Frank Chodorov (born Fishel Chodorovsky -- did you know that? I didn't), Garet Garrett (author of _The Driver_, which Raimondo argues may have been an important unacknowledged source for Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED), John T. Flynn (who among other things wrote a scathing expose of Roosevelt and the "New Deal"), Rose Wilder Lane (author of _The Discovery of Freedom_), and Isabel Paterson (author of _The God of the Machine_ and the former guru of Ayn Rand).Raimondo also discusses the hijacking of the Right by Bill Buckley and the neoconservatives, doing a much better job than Rand did in her little puff piece, "Conservativism: An Obituary." In fact Raimondo is careful to acknowledge all the genuine conservatives Rand left out of her "obituary"; rather than simply declaring conservatism dead, as Rand did, Raimondo wants to recover it from the people who almost destroyed it in favor of militaristic Statism.Raimondo also discusses some genuine contemporary conservatives, including the late great Murray Rothbard (Raimondo is also the author of a soon-to-be-published biography of Rothbard), and provides a ringing defense of Pat Buchanan against a number of unfair attacks -- though he also harshly criticizes Buchanan's stand against free international trade. (The back of the book features an endorsement from Buchanan, by the way -- a little tribute to the intellectual integrity of both men.)His remarks on Rand will also be of interest to bemused watchers of the "Objectivist" movement. Despite some obvious respect for her talents as a novelist (he thinks, and I agree, that _The Fountainhead_ was her best work and ATLAS SHRUGGED was pretty kludgy), he does not spare the rod as regards her pretensions of originality, her claim to stand within no pre-existing tradition whatsoever, her intellectual fraud in each of these respects, her failure to give proper credit even to those of her forebears who were directly influential on her thought (Isabel Paterson being the primary example), and her endorsement of several policies that would have been anathema to the Old Right. I suspect that Raimondo would be happy -- and I know I would -- if Rand were publicly exposed as a pretentious, pseudophilosophical, cult-mongering fraud, discredited as a representative of the classical-liberal Right, and recognized as the "leftist" she really was. (And any "Objectivists" reading this review are hereby invited to click "Not helpful.")At any rate Raimondo's workmanlike volume belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in recovering the genuine tradition of liberty. His efforts to restore the memory of an important and all but forgotten strain of American thought will be of interest to libertarians and classi

A Legacy Worth Discovering

Justin Raimondo's "Reclaiming the American Right" is one of the most fascinating political books I have ever read. I first read this work a couple of years ago, but return to it often because the stories of the various figures of the Old Right are so relevant to the current political situation. This book should be required reading for all who associate the word "conservative" with "troglodyte" or "warmonger". It wasn't always so! The "Old Right" conservatives were very interested in personal liberty and bitterly opposed to war and the Merchants of Death who profit from them. They saw that in trying to police the world, America would lose it's liberty. Garet Garrett, John T. Flynn, Frank Chodorov ... these are names that deserve to be widely known, men whose works should be read as an antidote to the interventionist dogma of our times. Raimondo performed a valuable service in presenting their views to a new generation.